Sea Otters (and Herring?)

Over the past couple of decades or more, sea otters numbers have increased dramatically in Sitka Sound. When I was growing up, I don’t remember seeing any sea otters until probably the early or mid-90s, and that was up close to Salisbury Sound. These days, it’s not hard to find rafts of 100 or more … Read more

Grebes and a Caterpillar

At least three still-downy Pied-billed Grebes were hanging out on Swan Lake waiting to be fed by parents. Also today, Connor found a green caterpillar crawling on the sidewalk. He brought it home and we were going to try to find it a food plant, but discovered it just wanted to bury itself in dirt, so we left it in a small bucket of dirt inside a rearing cage on the porch to see what might emerge.

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Chromophyton (Golden Glow Mystery Revisited)

Over three years ago, I reported on a “Golden Glow Mystery” that was puzzling me. My brother and I had been hiking along Mosquito Cove Trail and I noticed a yellow something covering the surface of a muddy depression under a stump. First thinking it was pollen or spores, we determined that it was neither … Read more

Daily Observations

Today was the first day in quite some time that there was enough precipitation to make the ground wet. There was not enough to penetrate very deep or form puddles, but it definitely made a difference. The story of the day in the woods was how green everything looked. At first I was uncertain whether … Read more