Life on the Outer Coast

The first time I woke up (around 5am) it was foggy. Fell back asleep and when I got up it was sunny. Unfortunately, I spent the sunny part of the day doing laundry and clean up at the Fine Arts camp faculty dorm. Finished my share of the chores at noon and met Steve and M.B. at Crescent for a trip to Redoubt lake. I don't really need any fish as I'm amply supplied with troll caught salmon, but subsistance fishing can be alot of fun and has a nice sense of community about it. The weather was sunny when we started down, but was dripping before we went past Povorotni Pt. Its steady rain this evening.

There was an immense amount of water coming down all outlets from the lake. Not surprising given the amount of snow this winter and the amount that is still present on the mountains surrounding the lake. There was a snow patch at the base of a slide on the north side of the bay at about 300ft. The rock in the main channel that Steve and M.B. usually fish from was covered by roaring water, but we decided to stick with that shore. The smaller side channel where I've fished was crowded with people and didn't look as inviting. Given the volume of water and the length of the net handle, there was no way I or M.B. could begin to control the net, so we let Steve do that part of the work. It was pretty difficult for him too, but we did get two bright and relatively large sockeye. We were waiting for the next fish to clean, when a bear walked across the weir with a cleaned sockeye in its mouth. We were about 50ft below the weir so we got a pretty good look at it. It was a young one, maybe on its second year of life. It had a nice shoulder hump, but looked rather lean. The sockeye should help. It disappeared in the forest for a few minutes, I assume eating its fish away from people and then we spotted it again at the beginning of the weir. It was watching Steve rather closely and we were watching it. For a moment, it looked like it was going to come our way, so I untied the skiff and M. B. grabbed the oars, but the bear decided to cross the weir again. Next time I saw the bear it was climbing out of the water on the far bank. The people on the side channel had created enough of a ruckus that the bear moved on. It turned out the fishing was much better on the side channel. People there seemed to be getting their limit of fish. Snagging seemed to be productive for some people as well. We didn't bring poles so it wasn't an option.
There were a very large number of jellyfish (looked like lion's mane) around the outlet, some had been stranded by the high tide and there were several tide pools full of dying jelly fish.

Noticed Elliotia pyrolaeflora was blooming on an island between the outlet channels. Heuchera glabra, Hordeum brachyantherum, Festuca rubra and Deschampsia caespitosa (didn't check that one) were also flowering. Found a small clump of Hypopitys monotropa in the forest. Pseudocyphellaria anomla on both Alnus rubra and A.viridis (correct name?). Once a person starts looking for something, its amazing what one can find.

Lost count of the rhinoceros auklets, marbled murrelets, murres and pigeon guillemots that we saw in Redoubt bay. It might be an amazing place for a flyway count.
Saw a Pacific-slope flycatcher (and assorted thrushes) by the dock this morning on the way to town.
Counted 8 murrelets on the way home.

I forgot to include Tellima grandiflora and Heuchera glabra on yesterday's blooming list from the Harbor-Gavan trail. I left the willow on the dissecting scope last night, by morning all of the pistils had opened, showing alot of white fuzzy seeds.