Took a walk to the park today this afternoon with Kitty LaBounty and someone else who was interested in finding out about what’s going on as Fall comes to Sitka.
Weather: It rained over 3 inches yesterday, and while it was nowhere close to that today, it was still pretty wet. Showers were periodic, with pretty heavy rain when it was falling, but there was time between showers.
Birds: Last night I woke up at least a couple of times to the sound of geese flying overhead. It sounded like there were lots of them flying over fairly low. I kept my eyes and ears open throughout the day, but did not notice any more until this evening around 5pm. There were probably a couple of hundred geese flying over downtown toward Crescent Bay and beyond. They were not as organized as I usually see them, so I think either the wind was blowing them around or they were getting ready to find a place to land.
There was an American Pipit feeding in the grass near the SJC greenhouse around noon today.
The Sharp-shinned Hawk was on the beach at the park. It flew off shortly after I saw it, but I think it had been going after Savannah Sparrows. There were a few in the area when we got to where the hawk had been standing on the beach. One of the sparrows in particular seemed very reluctant to move. I think it may have been afraid that the hawk was still watching and waiting. A little later we saw the hawk chasing a flicker around the estuary.
There were lots of gulls on the park beach. There were 40 or more Black Turnstones. Some of the Fork-tailed Storm-petrels were coming pretty close to shore.
In the estuary there were several American Wigeons and Green-winged Teal.
We heard a Hairy Woodpecker in the park.
Other Notes: There were several different fungus fruiting in the park. I did not have the correct camera lenses or my tripod, so I did not try to get a picture. The angelwing fungus was particularly showy, so I will try to go get a photo of it tomorrow.