Overcast with some light rain during the day. Chilly. Temperatures in the 30s.
Although it was above freezing while I was out, clear skies lasted long enough last night for some things to freeze around the house. I noticed ice in the hummingbird feeder, and one of the gutters.
I waited until later in the afternoon to go out to Starrigavan. I wanted to revisit the mystery dark balls growing on the barnacle shells. High tide was near noon, and I wouldn’t be able to get to them until the tide had fallen four feet off it’s 10+ ft high.
When I arrived at Starrigavan shortly before 3, the tide was still too high.
I passed some time by walking through the hike in part of the campground.
I was able to find yellow and black springtails I had first noticed last year. In order to maybe get an identification beyond family, I will need to collect one of them.
I was puzzled that they would not jump when I took pictures, but did jump as I lifted the little container to capture one. When I tried going with the container without taking pictures first, they wouldn’t jump. I was able to catch three or four, but I’m not sure if any were the larger females that I need for identification purposes (they were too small for me to see well enough without the additional magnification my camera provides).
With the heavy clouds, light was starting to fade when I went down to the beach around 3:45pm. The tide wasn’t quite as low as my previous visit, but I thought it was low enough.
As it turned out, the tide was only just low enough. At first I wasn’t finding any of the barnacles with the dark growths on the shell. When I looked right at the waters edge, and even in the water, I started seeing them.
I spent the evening working on observations last August 12th. It was a very full day, with a trip down to the park very early for moonset, followed by a trip to little magic island for low tide, then a hike up Starrigavan Ridge and back down by Eagle Dip Lake. I still have observations from the hike, but the low tide observations were enough to put me over 1000 for Alaska last year. It was a productive day at the beach, as I saw at least two or three new-to-me species.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
