Low clouds early at Goddard, lifting later in the morning and becoming breezy.
Back in town, it was calm, with rain beginning in the afternoon.
We checked out low tide this morning. I was the second one out and about. After crossing through a patch of forest to the beach on the other side of the island, I followed the shoreline counter-clockwise.
Travel along the granite boulders required a little scrambling at times, but mostly wasn’t too bad.
Seemingly random black rocks among the paler ones that made up the shoreline puzzled me at first. A bit further on, I saw a vein of black, so I guess maybe some basalt came up through a crack or something.
I went to where I could see a section of shoreline I didn’t expect to be able to traverse. Up until this point, I had been covering ground rather than poking around among the abundant intertidal life.
On a sandy beach, pieces of seaweed being drawn into holes caught my attention. I’m believe the holes were where clam siphons would emerge. I’ve seen those before, but don’t remember noticing seaweed getting pulled in.
Moving slower as I made observations, I mostly saw familiar species. I was excited to find feather boa kelp. It’s a species I was familiar with, having seen it once previously where it had washed ashore at Magic Island. However, this was actually attached, and I thought might represent a northern-most record for the distinctive kelp.
In hindsight, I am disappointed that I didn’t spend a little more time getting nicer photos, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. I did pick a piece to bring and show to the others. Kitty suggested we make a collection, so Paul and Brooke went back over and picked a full frond to bring back to town.
By the time we were done at the beach and packing up, the wind had picked up. It made ferrying stuff to the boats more more challenging.
I ended up being the last one on shore, and checked out a rope swing up on a little hill above the beach. From a distance, I thought a board which had been a seat was broken. Looking closer, it seemed the swing was built that way. I’m not sure how its used – perhaps one puts a feet in the loops, or they could put arms in (but that would be really uncomfortable).
Conditions were breezy back to Cape Burunof, then calm.
Walking home from the harbor, I heard my first Golden-crowned Sparrow of the year.
This afternoon I went out to look for birds that had been reported while I was away from town. I did find the Greater-white Fronted Geese at the golf course.
I saw shorebirds were at the park from across river from Eagle Way beach, but I didn’t make it out there.
Connor wanted to head over to Kruzof this evening. Despite the rain, it was the best weather window in the forecast.
He hoped for Inner Point, with Point Brown and Port Krestof as a fall back.
Heading out from Starrigavan, it soon became clear that Inner Point would be a no go.
Once in at Point Brown and Port Krestof we found it wet, but calm. I forgot my binoculars, so I had to rely more on Connor spotting things. Wet and dim conditions, also kept me from doing too much with my camera.
Between Point Brown and Port Krestof, We saw ~50 Greater Yellowlegs, a Red Knot, 45+ MAGO, and good numbers of some other species. Also a Eurasian Wigeon in Port Krestof.
The heavy clouds meant we did not have a lot of time to spend and still be able to get back before dark.
We took long way around to avoid rough conditions. It took 40 minutes from Port Krestof back to Starrigavan via Krestof Sound and Olga Strait.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
