As the semester is winding down, it seems my work days are getting a little busier. It didn’t help that the warming weather made conditions a little sloppy, I’ve been continuing to fight off a cold, and Melissa spent the day yesterday writing and working on ceramics. However, today I did get out and go for a hike up to the West Valley of Indian River. It was a good trip with Scott the director of the outdoor center on campus, and Matt, a student. When we were first talking about the trip, there was so much snow it seemed likely that we would need snowshoes. This morning it was a balmy 44 degrees or so, and there had been a lot of melting that took place in the last 36 hours, so we decided to forgo snowshoes. As it turned out, that was a pretty good decision. They were not necessary and would have been annoying to carry. We went up to visit the big hemlock tree. We ended up taking one of the most direct routes I have managed to it. It took us a little over 2 hours to get up there and probably an hour and a half or so to get back.

Weather: Temperatures have climbed the last couple of days. Today they managed to stay in the low-to-mid 40’s. The forecast called for some pretty strong winds this morning, but they must have died down before I got up and out a little before 8am. There was some wind in the valley as we hiked, but not a lot. Every so often while we were hiking it felt like we would walk through an exceptionally warm spot. This seemed to occur primarily near openings in the forest. After we discussed it for a bit, we concluded that it must be eddies of warmer air that were mixing with the cooler air near ground level. Since we were in the forest, the trees probably kept the warmer air that had moved in with the front from mixing easily with the colder air underneath the trees. This was probably aided by the fact that cool air is more dense than warm air.

Birds: I have been hearing people talk about a heron at the flume lately, but until this morning, I had not seen it. We were planning to meet at Rasmuson and I got there a little early, so I wandered over to the flume. The bird was unexpectedly tolerant of people walking by. I would not have known this, except someone walked by while I was standing some distance away. After that, I walked up on the bridge and the bird just ignored me. I did see the heron catch a couple of fish while I was watching.

There were several eagles along the river as we were walking up, especially the west fork. They were there to eat the coho salmon that are still remaining in the river.

There was a flock of Pine Siskins (possibly with Redpolls mixed in?) in the alders near the water treatment facility by the trailhead.

Other Notes:

I had not previously noticed just how deeply rotted the large hemlock tree is. I don’t think it could be cored and aged accurately at all. Clearly the rot doesn’t go all the way through, but it does go well into the middle of the tree; it almost made me wonder if it could be hollowed out to make a My Side of the Mountain style dwelling. It might still be a bit small for me, but probably for someone shorter, it might work.

We saw the remains of a couple of salmon near the river and a couple more still swimming. One set of remains was basically blood and colored snow where the eggs had been. The other was a partially eaten fish. I did not realize there were still fish up here this late in the year, but I guess I am not surprised since last year there were lots of them lower down in the river the second week of November.

There were some recent deer tracks in the snow in many places in the west valley. There was also a bit of a deer trail that we followed, though enough melting had occured in the last couple of days that individual tracks were not evident. In a couple of locations we found places where it looked like a deer had curled up and layed down. The snow was partially melted out in a circular shape with the center having a little less melt than the rest. I gave a quick look for deer hair, but was not able to see any. Maybe they don’t give up their hair easily in winter. There were not any tracks leading up to or away from the spot except for a set that went through it. They seemed to have pretty clearly been made well after the snow was melted out. Of course, with all the melt that has occured, I suppose the deer could have laid their a day or two ago and it’s tracks would have been pretty much gone.

I’m still working on getting rid of a cold, so I was not too inclined to go for a substantial walk today.

Weather: Skies cleared throughout the day. Temperatures in the low 30s.

Birds: There were lots of Ravens and a few Eagles around this morning. When I came out of Fraser at one point this morning there were 7 or so Ravens on a snow berm across from Stratton Library. It wasn’t clear to me what they were doing there.

There was a report of a Snowy Owl over on Alice Island this afternoon, but I wasn’t able to get over there to look for it.

Other Notes: There was at least one deer that wandered through the neighborhood recently. I saw its tracks going down the trail from the top of the hill to Lincoln Street by Sage Building.

The snow’s been deep and I’ve been fighting a cold, so I have not spent too much time outside the last couple of days, though Thursday night I did get the chance to tag along looking for screech owls.

Weather: The forecast has continually called for rain and snow, but we’ve just been getting snow here. It’s now over a foot deep in the open areas. Temperatures have been in the lower 30s.

Birds: I noticed some Pine Siskins in the alders behind our house on Friday. Thursday morning I saw Dark-eyed Juncos foraging in the alders down near the hatchery. With the deep snow, I’m guessing it’s pretty difficult for ground feeders to find much to eat.

Thursday night I went with Michelle Kissling and Steve Lewis, biologists from Juneau, to watch their efforts to catch an owl (a local high school student is planning to study owls for his senior project). We saw at least two of them, and they were successful getting one. Students told me they often see owls near the flume by Rasmusson around 10pm.

Today I noticed some feathers floating down in the backyard, so I went outside to investigate. As best I could tell, they were screech owl feathers. I saw a raven with something up in the trees between our house and the maintanence building. I think the Raven probably had a wing, though I don’t know that the raven actually did the killing. I’ll try to find out for sure if the feathers are from a screech owl.

Other Notes: There was a hole with melted snow around near the top of the hill beside Hillcrest Drive immediately behind the Maintenance building. I am guessing a squirrel is down in the hole, though I did not notice tracks going to and from it. Maybe there is another entrance. It’s also possible that the ground is warmer than freezing, so relatively warm air was venting and melting the snow.

Wednesday night when I was out sledding with Connor and Rowan, I saw a moth flying around. It seemed a little late (and chilly) for that, but someone else mentioned seeing quite a few moths in the last few days, so I guess this wasn’t the only one.

I was not planning to spend much time outside today, but I thought I should get out at least a little bit, so I took a short lunch time walk down to Lincoln Street Beach. While there, I saw some tracks in the sand and realized the bit of sand just below the large rocks that control erosion on the slope up to the street would make a good place to go practice trying to read tracks. Later in the afternoon, I got an e-mail report of a Lapland Longspur on Alice Island. I used that as an excuse to get out once more, and biked over to look for the bird.

Weather: The weather ended up being pretty decent. It was breezy, but not as windy as had originally been forecast. It was partly cloudy for much of the day. Chilly, but above freezing.

Birds: I saw a Ruby-crowned Kinglet in the bushes across from Sage Building.

I did get a look at the Lapland Longspur on Alice Island, but not much of one. When I arrived, the person who reported it to me pointed out where she had seen it throughout the day. I walked back along the narrow gravel road lined on one side by a fenced in playground and on the other by 8-10 foot tall alder trees with few leaves. Just past a bend in the road, I saw the bird. I tried to approach slowly, but it took off and flew over the trees. I sat and waited, as I had been told the bird was chased off more than once, but kept coming back to the same location. After just a couple of minutes I saw the bird fly over, so I stood up to watch where it was headed. I had barely had a chance to stand up and get oriented when I saw the bird coming back toward me with a raptor in pursuit. Fortunately for the longspur, the raptor could not quite make the grab and it gave up. I watched it fly up and start gaining elevation over the airport runway. It looked like several other birds were soaring in the area as well. I was not able to relocate the longspur in the 20 minutes or so that I tried after that. Presumably it was pretty nervous about coming out into the open again.

Flora: There were a lot of alder seeds on the ground where the longspur was foraging. I am guessing that the bird was eating them.

Tracks and Sign: There were at least a couple of sets of tracks in the sand at the beach. One of them was quite faint, I think it may have rained after they were made. The other was quite fresh, but a little difficult for me to interpret. As best I can tell, a small dog was running and jumping around on the beach. However, some of the tracks did not seem to have any follow up prints. I suppose the animal could have been capable of jumping much further than I might have guessed (although I did not see evidence of landing), or something else was going on. I did take a bunch of pictures, so I might try to puzzle it out some more from them.
tracks at beach (dog?)