Sitka Nature

I took Rowan to school this morning and we stopped at Swan Lake on the way. I took advantage of the nice weather to walk around the park. I spent a fair bit of time just sitting and enjoying the sun near the battle site, then as I was leaving, I saw Connor’s class and was encouraged to go on the field trip with them to learn about salmon. I spent a fair chunk of the of the afternoon sitting outside.

The sun is definitely getting lower in the sky. This afternoon I noticed that from our house, the sun was behind some of the neighborhood trees again. During the summer months, it is high enough in the sky to shine on the house throughout the day. I guess it’s the time of year when I really start to notice the instinctive desire to get as much sunlight as I can.

Weather: It was partly cloudy today. It was pretty calm this morning, but got a bit breezy this afternoon. Temperatures overnight were cooler. It was the first day I’ve seen fresh snow on the mountains this fall. The snow level appeared to be about 3300-3400 feet.

Birds: The Cackling Goose was at Swan Lake.

At Totem Park there were quite a few Savannah Sparrows.

The tide was out a fair bit when I was at the park, so the gulls were quite scattered. A couple of people walked out on the beach while I was stting, so what gulls were there flew on. I did not feel too motivated to check out all the gulls anyway, so I was content to just sit and soak up the sun. I watched a couple of ravens playing over and on the flats. At least I think they were playing. Just as they returned to the ground and started to feed on a salmon carcass, I heard a call that sounded a bit like a sandpiper. I looked and saw small-ish gray bird flying over the flats from the direction of Indian River. My first thought was ‘Spotted Sandpiper’, given the location, size, and color. However the shape and flight pattern was not quite right. I was able to get my binoculars on it and saw that it was a Fork-tailed Storm-petrel. It continued across the flats over to the large tidepool, then on over to finally land on the water just off the Crescent Harbor breakwater. Someone had reported seeing some between Crescent Harbor and Morne Island earlier in the week, so perhaps this was a straggler. It was interesting to see it coming from the river and flying over the flats (and not the water), as I had just had a conversation with someone yesterday about storm-petrels, and he said he had never seen them in close at Jamestown Bay (where he lives) or over land (except where they were nesting). I had mentioned hearing from a long-time Sitkan that when he was a kid, the storm-petrels would sometimes come and fly over the houses up off Crescent Bay during storms.

Around the neighborhood there were quite a few American Robins working on the Mountain Ash berries across from the house. I also saw a Varied Thrush or two.

There was a Winter Wren by the large neighborhood Sitka Spruce.

Other Notes: From the park, I could see several Humpback Whales out in Eastern Channel and towards the mouth of Silver Bay.

I took a look at the large neighborhood spruce and saw that a squirrel has taken up residence. It appears to have dug a couple of holes under the tree and has littered the ground with spruce cone scales. It chattered at me for most of the 20 or more minutes that I sat near the tree.

I took Connor to school this morning, then stopped by Swan Lake before going home. After Connor got back from school, he, Rowan, and I went down to the park. Rowan was a rather reluctant participant in the outing, so after she needed to come home to go to the bathroom, Connor and I went back.

Weather: It was a dim, wet day, though the wind was pretty much gone. There were periods of time when it didn’t rain, but the second time we went down to the park, it dumped on us. There was even some sleet/ice pellets mixed in for a little bit.

Birds: I did not see the white-fronted geese at Swan Lake this morning, though the Cackling Goose was still there. I also saw a Cackling Goose at the park (it was definitely a different bird, as the white marking on the face was brighter and larger).

There were quite a few Black Turnstones scattered about, though mostly we saw flocks flying over.

On the first trip to the park we made it down to the end and I had a chance to look at the gulls there only briefly before taking Rowan home. There were quite a few Black-legged Kittiwakes along the water’s edge. Someone later reported counting over 60 of them, but I don’t think there were that many when I was there. On the second trip, the kittiwakes were gone. The tide had gone out even further and, though there were lots of gulls, they were fairly spread out. Heavy rain hampered visibility, but I did not notice anything out of the ordinary.

The heavy rain also made it hard to distinguish the ducks, but there were quite a few Mallards, mostly out on the gravel bar between the current river channel and the old channel. I also saw at least one Northern Pintail, 4 American Wigeon, and 4 Green-winged Teal.

I saw two Red-necked Grebes off shore of the battlesite. These are the first I’ve seen this fall, though I talked to someone who had seen a couple at Starrigavan in the last week or so.

I noticed a Winter Wren in the park again today. Someone mentioned to me seeing wrens on Chicken of the Woods a couple of times lately.

Other Notes: The tomato did not quite get hit by the tide today.

Indian River was running fairly high, but it seemed much more clear than yesterday. Perhaps rains of yesterday washed the bulk of the free mud out.