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Gray Day Birds and Lichens

Heavy overcast with rain beginning in the afternoon. Light winds and temperatures in the low 40s.

Rowan mentioned there was thunder and lightning late last night. Until she said that, I hadn’t remembered hearing the thunder in a state of semi-sleep. I more clearly remembered hearing heavy precipitation. It sounded like hail, but could have been very heavy rain.

I didn’t get out until mid-afternoon. I had some mild regret about putting it off, as the rain had started shortly before I left home.

I had ideas of going to Indian River to look for Scouleria aquatica, a species I’ve only observed a few times. I saw a recent observation posted by someone else that could have been it (but didn’t show enough detail to be sure). I was surprised to see I had only observed it four times (and probably not at all last year). It’s easy enough to find, but it’s not so common and doesn’t grow in places that I come across very often it without making a specific effort to look.


The rain and no conveniently close parking put me off that plan, so I drove out to Sawmill Cove. I saw a few of the normal birds (including white neck patches the Pelagic Cormorant) and a Thick-billed Murre. The murre was not especially close, but I was able to get photos that let me feel reasonably confident in my id.

Although the rain hadn’t let up, I thought I might go down to the rocks at Whale Park. Upon arrival, I saw the near staircase was closed for maitenance.

I finally ended up at Sage Beach. I thought I might revisit a lichen (Tephromela atra) I’ve found here previously.


I didn’t end up finding it today, but did document a couple of other lichens that caught my eye.

A good chunk of my day was spent working through photos and iNaturalist observations from last September. These included observations from a hike up Bear Mountain last September. A made it through all of those, and now just have scattered observations from a few days before I’m done with the July-September period. Hopefully I can wrap that up tomorrow.

My iNaturalist Observations for Today

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