Life on the Outer Coast

Sunday, June 24th

The intended target of today's trip was Goddard, but we didn't quite make it that far. A nice example of almost prepared. Gas, kayak, paddle, anchor & shoreline, life jackets, food, water, chart, but alas not quite enough oil. We made it to the Taiguds before the alarm went off, so we decided to at least enjoy that beach. We did find some gear oil on the boat and dumped that into the oil tank. It seemed to do the trick, we made it back to town without any obvious trouble.

There were three humpbacks and a small fleet of trollers working the outside of the Eastern channel drag. Also saw 2 rhinoceros auklets and a handful of marbled murrelets in the same area. Going south (and back north for that matter) into the waves was a little too bouncy to make use of binoculars, but all in saw one pigeon guillemot, 5 common murres, about 20 marbled murrelets and a pelagic cormorant. Also saw a dozen otters andabout 8 seals on the haulout near Povorotni Pt.

Unfortunately the Taiguds had been the site of a weekend party and the place was very much the worse for wear. It must have been a wedding, there was alot of champagne, confetti doves and a large place where the beach vegetation had been flattened in a rather deliberate way. It was a rather sad way to celebrate or at least a sad way to leave the place.

I did my usual hopeless gesture of dandelion removal, this time Jeff and Ian helped. We removed a garbage can load of dandelions, but there are plenty more there. Maybe I'll go back again this summer and indulge myself in additional gestures. At least I'll get to go to the beach.

In bloom, despite the trampling and dandelion invasion was a nice variety of flowers including: Fragaria chiloensis, Castilleja unalaschcensis, Polygonum viviparum, Carex macrochaeta, and C. lyngbyei, Trientalis borealis, some Dodecatheon pulchellum, Plantago macrocarpa and P. maritima, Potentilla villosa and Leymus mollis. The Frittillaria were mostly done and the Senecio, Festuca rubra and Campanula weren't quite out yet. Also blooming and I'm quite proud of myself for identifying them were two species of Arabis, lyrata and hirsuta. The taxonomy of the latter seems to be in doubt. It might be eschscholziana or hirsuta var eschscholziana, but I haven't decided yet. For now, I'll stick with the name in Anderson's Flora.
Around the western side of the island the Aquilegia formosa were in full glory. They were especially beautiful growing in the Leymus mollis on the edge of the beach. The Dodecatheon pulchellum was still in full bloom in the shady areas of the rocks on the southwest side of the island. Some of the smaller cliff tortured trees were mostly covered with Lobaria linita, but on two of the trees I found Pseudocyphellaria anomala. It might be more common than I thought, but still there were only two rather small individuals completely surrounded by Lobaria.

Also saw an amazingly large (about 3") isopod , Ligia pallasii, crawling around the rocks. Thanks to Aaron for the name of the animal. It was low tide, but I was too lost in the plants to properly appreciate the abundant invertebrates.

I'll have to try again for the Myrica and Gaultheria at Goddard. That will give me another chance to see the Senecio pseudo-arnica in bloom as I always seem to stop at the Taiguds, despite the over and ill usage.

The Aruncus dioicus and Mainanthemum dilatatum are in abundant blooom on Galankin.