Clearly I have not managed to keep up with the updates over the last couple of weeks. I have been spending some time outside, mostly with work, but my attention has been elsewhere.

A couple of things I forgot to mention previously were the berries. What few salmonberries there are started get ripe two or three weeks ago. The blueberries also started getting ripe a week or two ago. It looks like it’s going to be a poor berry crop all around this year.

I spent three days in Juneau this week. On my way to the airport, I Tuesday morning, I heard what I thought was a yellowlegs calling near the airport lagoon.

In Juneau I noticed some interesting differences in flora. The thimbleberries seem to be more common there than in Sitka. Also some plants that I tend to associate with alpine or sub-alpine meadows were in the montane forest on Mt. Roberts. There also seemed to be a fair amount of Ribes lacustre around Juneau. I have only seen that noticed that once in the Sitka area, north of town on Piper Island.

Also while I was in Juneau, I saw a black bear getting into a garbage can. That seems to be more of a problem in Juneau than in Sitka.

Last Friday I had a pretty fun tour. It was my first time on the smaller 6-pack catamaran. The tours on this boat just have a captain and crew member, with a maximum of 6 passengers. This particular tour had three folks. We had good views of humpback whales, great looks at Tufted Puffins, a good minke whale sighting and a stop off at the beach near Pt. Brown. The people were interesting to talk to. One of the ladies on the trip was a plant and bird enthusiast, so she asked a lot of questions about the birds and plants we saw.

A week ago Thursday I went over to Kruzof on a trip that was primarily for looking at seaweed. A group of Phycologists from the international conference being held in Juneau came to Sitka for a field trip. There were a few spaces available on the boat, so I took advantage of the opportunity to get over there. I saw new-to-me plants, and found a bird nest. I may yet get an entry written about that trip specifically.

Weather has been varied overall. There were a few nice days, but there’s been a lot of rain. I guess that Wednesday was pretty nice, but I was in Juneau (where it was pretty nice as well).

I took a couple of other folks out on a hike up the West Fork of Indian River valley today. Our intention was to visit the large hemlock tree my brother showed me a couple of
years ago.

Weather: It started out cloudy, with the cloud layer at around 2000 feet. By around noon the clouds had started breaking up, and sunny skies prevailed throughout the rest of the day. There was a good breeze, though I failed to note the direction.

Birds: The woods were much quieter than last time I went up Indian River. There were a number of juvenile birds, including Winter Wrens, Varied Thrush, and what I think was a Hermit Thrush.

One of my hiking companions had to head back early and told me later that he had found a hawk feather on his way back. He thought it was from either a Sharp-shinned Hawk or juvenile Goshawk.

As has been the case quite often in recent days, there were eagles active around the neighborhood. One even spent some time perched in a relatively small tree right across from the house.

Flora: Flowers blooming included Heart-leaved Twayblade, Ground Dogwood, Mountain Arnica, plantanthera orchids, and a few others I do not recall right now.

The most interesting plant experience for me was probably the discovery of many patches of Goblin’s Gold moss. I did not have my tripod, so I could not get very good photos of it, but many of the root wads from overturned trees had it growing on them.

We did measure the hemlock tree to be over 100 inches in diameter. In addition to this, we measured a few spruce trees that seemed fairly large. The largest of those we measured was over 90 inches in diameter.

There was a white slime mold in evidence on the trunk of a tree that had fallen down some time ago.

Enchanter’s Nightshade is a small plant that forms a ground cover in some places. It was abundant throughout the hike today, though in one place there was a small area with none growing in it, though it was growing all around. The patch of ground was not totally bare, but it definitely did not have many plants growing in it compared to ground just adjacent. There was not a clear reason that I could see for this to be the case.

Invertebrates: In the middle sister muskeg where I previously observed emerging dragonflies there were many adult dragonflies and damselflies in evidence. I was puzzled somewhat by how small they seemed to be. I am pretty sure the newly emerged dragonflies I saw before were Hudsonian Whitefaces, and today there were definitely many of these flying around. However, the ones flying around today seemed distinctly smaller than what I had seen before. I also noticed this effect with a couple of Four-spotted Skimmers. My best guess is that when their exoskeleton dries, it shrinks somewhat. I previously observed them just just after emergence, so perhaps they were still not completely dried out.

Also in the middle sister muskeg, we had some fun looking at the critters in the puddles. I pulled out a large caddisfly encased in its larval home. Apparently these insect larva build their home with miniture logs which they extrude after processing plant fibers. They are able to stick them together to make a long tube in which they live.

In addition to the many different creatures living below, I happened to notice a spider running across the surface of a puddle. This was not something I remembered seeing before.

This evening the kids brought in a large dark colored moth they had found in the back yard. It seemed unable to fly, though I do not know why. Its underwings were more of an orangish color.

Mammals: As has been the case most times that I have been up this way, there was relatively fresh bear sign. We saw some tracks and places where skunk cabbage had been uprooted, but more significantly there was some pieces deer hide (that did not look too old, the hair did not seem to be coming out yet). Near the deer hide was a place at the base of a tree that looked like it had been dug up and recovered recently. We took that as a sign to keep moving.

There were a few different locations that looked like deer beds.

I took a couple of people I know (a botanist and her husband) up to an interesting clearing I found sometime back in Indian River Valley. I was hoping to get some insight into why the place was different and what was growing there. It was a fairly wet trip, but informative for me.

Weather: It was overcast throughout the day with a brief breaks in the clouds in the evening. There was little rain, but the woods were saturated with rain from the previous days. Flowers in the muskegs showed the effects of heavy rain yesterday. There seemed to be little wind at the house or in the valley.

Birds: I heard a new for me variation on the Townsend’s Warbler call on my way down Indian River Road.

On the way to the clearing, there was one sapsucker nest with nestlings. Normally I am used to hearing more than one in the area we covered, so I do not know if it is a low number this year or if that nest just happens to be an early one.

While in the clearing we observed a Red-breasted Sapsucker flying out and catching insects on the wing. I think that’s generally called hawking.

On the way back we seemed to upset a couple of Steller’s Jays. Perhaps they had a nest around. One of them made a call I had never heard before. I did not know what it was until it started making a more typical jay call a few seconds later.

Flora: Plants are blooming pretty well in the muskegs. Three-leaf Goldthread is at or past its peak, cloudberry and bog rosemary, are going strong but perhaps not at the peak. Bog laurel, buckbean, and some sedges have a pretty good start. I also saw bog cranberry, orchids and nagoonberries in the early stages of blooming.

Other Notes: There were a couple of different locations we passed with obvious bear activity. There was a trail that looked like it had been used sometime in the last week or two at the edge of the meadow. On the way back we went up and over a small rise and at the top of the hill was a lot of old bear scat with lots of deer hair. It also looked like the bear had done some scraping/digging.

A bear was killed along a popular hiking trail near town yesterday. According to the paper, it was a healthy three year old male. It had taken and killed a dog and then false charged the owner when he went back to look for his missing dog. He called the police and they, along with fish and wildlife officers tracked the bear down and shot it. Such situations lead me to stop and consider my attitude towards the local bear population.

As a general rule, I do not carry a gun while hiking. I know that bears are around and I have seen them while hiking. Occasionally (it seems like it is about once every year or two around here) there is significant trouble with a bear and a hiker or hunter. I tend to think that most of the time bears want nothing to do with me and they will go out of their way to avoid me. In fact, in my two closest bear encounters, they did just that. In each case, it seemed likely that they were surprised and I did not seem them until they were running away. (My photojournal has more details about the second encounter.) Certainly there is a risk due to bears, but when I think about how many people go out and spend time in bear country around Sitka and how rarely a violent encounter occurs, it seems reasonable to think that the chance of running into trouble with bears is small. Of course, it is also sensible to take reasonable precautions to avoid close encounters in the first place.