I feel pretty confident that the little bracket fungus I collected yesterday is a species of Hydnochaete. Which species, I'm still working on. I did find a monograph of the genus published in the early part of the last century, but haven't managed to wade through it yet. Did take some photos of a cross section that shows the spines with the microscope set up at the high school. Another photo shows the internal hyphae much better than this photo, but the spines were kind of intriguing. Someday I might start cutting thin enough sections again to get a clear view of both the spines and the hyphal context.

There was a produce size bag from Eve Grutter waiting for me at UAS when I returned this afternoon containing two interesting mushrooms. One was immense. My first impression was of a large Russula, until I took it out of the bag. The decurrent gills and heavy veil were good clues that this wasn't anything I've seen before.

The cap is 12 cm in diameter and from the top of the cap to the bottom of the included stem was 23cm long. The diameter of the stem is 8cm.

Reading the wonderfully detailed accompanying note, I learned that the stem was continuing on much deeper in the soil. Used Arora's key and settled on Catathelasma imperiale. This is apparently a rather small individual for this genus. The top of the cap is a light golden brown and superficially areolate. It was slightly viscid when collected, but was dry when it came into my hands. The spores are very elongate and amyloid (the reaction isn't as good in regular iodine as it should be in Melzers).

The mushroom was growing near a large sitka spruce on the Mosquito Cove trail. A great find. I definately need to get back into the woods.

On the muskeg project: ran the gels from the purified DNA and new primers. Zip! So started the nested primers with the purified DNA today.

Transferred a few of the dark septate cultures to new corn meal agar plates as they still had unwanted fungi. Also managed to start my first alcohol fire since High School. At least this one was a bit smaller. Might have to store the alcohol in a glass petri dish. It is alot easier to smother a fire with a glass lid. A plastic one just melts. No surprise there.

4 golden eyes, one glaucous winged gull on the way to town on Monday. Couldn't hardly see this morning.

Did briefly stop at the lake on Monday afternoon. Found scaup, ring necked ducks, coots, a widgeon as well as the begging multitude.

Saturday

The surface of the trail to the dock is covered with leaves. Most of the lower leaves are gone from the red alders , still some at the tops. The sitka alders have mostly lost their leaves on the island. Still some on the trees in the common, but on the east side of the lake they are all but gone.

Realizing that my commute is soon going to be in the dark, but I'll continue keeping track for as long as I can. This morning saw 2 common loons., 3 pelagic cormorants, 3 goldeneyes, a mew and a glaucous-winged gull.

Despite being warned about the extreme high tide, I mindlessly parked the skiff in my regular stall and found myself trapped when I wanted to go home. Some day I'll get my head out of outer space.

Ran into Chuck Johnstone at the book store. He asked about the pied-billed grebe, actually he asked if I agreed as to its identity. Amusing that anyone would ask me what I thought about the identification of a bird. I could at least tell him that I'd seen it and that I agreed with the call. He said he hadn't seen one for 28 years, so I should count myself fortunate to have seen it.

Found 4 buffleheads, several black-legged kittiwakes, long-tails and Thayers gulls in the channel. One Pacific loon in Mermaid cove. There were many ducks (Buffleheads and Scaups) in the lagoon by the water treatment plant, but I didn't take the time to look carefully. Seem to have been feeling lazy and uninspired. I think I need to go for a long hike instead of all of these short forays chasing birds. I need a little forest time.

Sunday

Seem to have survived last night's dance marathon. Removed the false eyelashes at 2am and woke up to sunshine at 10:30. Refilled the bird feeder after some much needed coffee. The birds were on it in few minutes, several chickadees, a junco and a skinny looking song sparrow. The song sparrow must have stuffed about 20 black sunflower seeds in its crop before flying away. Feeder watch starts on the 10th of November, so I need to get into the habit of regularly refilling both feeders.

Walked around the lake around noon (the coffee wasn't enough to counter the effects of a long night). No ducks in the lake, yesterdays Buffleheads moved off, but many golden-crowned kinglets, wrens, chickadees and song sparrows. The ruby-crowns and thrushes have thinned out considerably in the last month. Collected a few fungi on my walk, just as I was thinking that late fall is the time to turn a girl's heart back to bryophytes. The Isothecium stoloniferum is quite lush on the salmonberry and alder on the west side of the lake and is finally visible not that the leaves have fallen from the salmonberry. It was inspiring me to get back to my summer collections, but I brought home some fungi that need to be dealt with first.

A fungus that is easier to see now that the leaves have fallen is Xylaria hypoxylon (candlesnuff fungus). This saprophytic Ascomycete is very common on dead alders and salmonberries around the island. It is quite easy to recognize because of its thin antler-like appearance, with black stipe and white tips. It varies in the amount of branching of the fruiting body. Not sure about the distribution of this species in North America. Michael Kuo doesn't have a page for this fungus, but there is a nice photo on the following web site. http://www.mykoweb.com/CAF/species/Xylaria_hypoxylon.html

Also collected a small polypore from a treated 4 X 4 beside the trail. It looked alot like a Trametes versicolor, but had a very dark pore bearing surface. Under the dissecting scope the "dark pore layer" turned out to be short dark spines on a golden colored background. The inner surface of the fruiting body doesn't have any sign of a pore layer. The upper surface had concentric brownish color bands and was somewhat velvety or hairy. The hairs are easier to see with a handlens. Haven't gotten too far with its identification, it isn't turning up in any of the keys I usually turn to.

The last fungus I collected was a small Naematoloma or Pholiota. It's identification awaits a good spore print. It looks more like a Pholiota, but I seem to remember a species of Naematoloma that looks somwhat similar. Lactarius rufus and Craterellus tubaeformis are still fruiting.

There is a dead tree, really a snag about 25 ft tall that I walk by every day on my path to the dock that has three visible species of polypores fruiting. The Laetiporus conifericola was fruiting during the kayak building class. It fruited from the base of the tree to about the 6ft level. The remains of the fruiting body are still present as decomposing white brackets. Above the remains of the L. conifericola are two small fruiting bodies of Fomitopsis pinicola and a rather large (8 inch across) Ganoderma oreganese (varnished conk). Looking up the trunk there are visible insect galleries where the bark has fallen off. I would be interesting to keep track of several trees to see how many have multiple infections. I suspect that most do, but I haven't really kept track.

14 goldeneyes, 6 Thayers gulls and a double-crested cormorant on the way to town.

Felt compelled to add the photo that Deirdre sent from Boston. I believe that the building is Earth Sciences, the photo was taken after the first game of the series. Deirdre called from the roof of Fenway house at 12:30 her time, the celebration in the streets was quite audible over the phone.

Impressively windy and soggy day. Ventured out to Swan lake after fortifying myself with pizza, determined to look for the grebe despite the weather. Wriggled into rain gear, hat and boots in the car so I could sit still for long enough to find the elusive creature. Even took my umbrella, which survived the wind against all odds. Naturally since I was prepared to hang out and search, the grebe was in clear view outside of the dying pond lilies. It didn't stay too long, but I did get a good look at it. I looked for awhile longer, but couldn't find it again. The waterfowl were rather spooked by my umbrella, even the mallards were wary of the device. Since I was equiped for the weather, I sat down on the bench for a few minutes to take a better look around. The two coots, scaups, cackling goose, one widgeon, 4 or so Buffleheads and the mallards were in residence. I didn't last too long in the deluge, still didn't have enough clothes on to stay warm.

Started another round of PCR with the purified DNA extracted from roots of Carex livida and Coptis trifoliata with 2 different primers (NS31 and AM1). We'll find out Monday how this round went.
I finished looking at the backlog of stained roots. Sanguisorba had the nicest arbuscles, Kalmia, Triantha, Coptis, Empetrum, Trichophorum, Rubus chamaemorus and Gentiana had a mixture of staining hyphae and dark septate hyphae. The Rubus sample had several spores or spore-like structures associated with the roots.
Continued my search for a good positive control, that is a pot culture of an AM fungus. Not doing too well so far, but my last contact might have given me a good lead. Unfortunately, UCR doesn't have anyone still working on AM fungi so I suspect that the cultures that we maintained are gone (hopefully sent to another institution, but where?).


The morning commute was relatively quiet (in terms of birds). 3 Harlequins, 2 goldeneyes and a glaucuous-winged gull.

Tuesday-Thursday


The weather has been relatively pleasant for October. Tuesday morning there was frost on the Crescent harbor dock , but none on the island.

Tuesday mornings commute birds included one forked tail petrel, a few mew gulls and a kittiwake . The goldeneyes were near the Galankin dock.

Wednesday morning saw 2 Harlequins and a few mew gulls. There was one kingfisher, one glaucous winged gull on a piling, and goldeneyes next to the island dock.

Thursday morning was a little quiet for birds, just the goldeneyes by the dock and gulls that were too far away to identify.


I should have tended to my spore cultures on Sunday or used antibiotics in the media as the bacteria have the run of the Amanita cultures. I still have one Amanita in the refrigerator, so I should be able to try again. I looked in the park on Tuesday for a last specimen or two, but no luck. The winter chanterelles, Lactarius deliciosus and the Tricholoma were still fruiting. Also saw several golden-crowned kinglets and a small flock of black turnstones.

We ran the second step of the nested PCR with a lower annealing temperature (51 C instead of 57C)) and 35cycles instead of 30 in an attempt to get an amplification product that is definately a AM fungus. Apparently, the lower the temperatures, the more strigent the binding conditions, so the binding of primer to DNA template is more specific. We ran the gels of the PCR products on Wednesday. Chris and Lacy's products have some interesting bands, especially from Trichophorum, Josh and Caleb's came up with nothing. Only one of their postive controls had a band and it was a different size than that of the other group with the same primers. Not good. I may have to watch them even more carefully. They were having a ridiculously difficult time labeling their tubes that day, the muddle must have continued through the mixing process. Fortunately everyone's negative controls were clean. Even if we struggle to get the PCR process to work for us, we can at least see the fungi in the cleared and stained roots. The photograph is of a cleared and stained root from Trichophorum caespitosum. The most abundant fungi are in the dark septate group which we don't have specific primers for at this point. I've been corresponding with someone in Kansas who works with this group and he hasn't been successful in his attempts to develop specific group wide primers. The dark septate endophytes fungi are in the Ascomycetes, but are in different orders, genera and species, so it isn't a surprise that there aren't any specific primers. It would have been nice to be surprised.

Thursday I learned how to purify the extracted DNA with a sepharose column. Sepharose is a beaded form of agarose to which the impurities in the sample bind. The column needs to be conditioned (seems like getting the moisture level correct) by adding sterile distilled water and centrifuging and discarding the water three times. The zebra column is a small tube about an 1.5 inch tall with a beak-like (think moss beak) at the bottom that sits in a collection tube. Lastly the DNA is added to the column, centrifuged and collected in a clean collection tube. We purified Carex livida and Cornus suecica in hopes of getting good amplification. We are also going to try some different primers tomorrow.


Also on Thursday started the DNA extraction process from the yellow Amanita muscaria and Craterellus tubaeformis. We are hoping that one of these fungi has a laccase gene (lignin degraders) and can be used as a good positive control in the search for laccase genes in the DNA isolated from the muskeg and forest soils.





Did a little wandering around searching for birds on Tuesday and Thursday. Both days I stopped at swan lake. Didn't manage to find the reported grebe. My eyes just don't have the right search image yet. Will try again tomorrow. Did see the 2 coots, a shoveler (Tuesday), many scaups, and the cackling goose that has decided to hang out with the larger hybrid ducks. I shouldn't neglect the mallards, who faithfully greet my every arrival. At Wednesday night ballet, Joe told me about seeing swans fly overhead (how fitting, too bad I didn't have a white tutu). Drove out to Starrigavan Thursday afternoon in hopes that they were there...always a dreamer. Did see 2 horned grebes, one hooded merganser, several buffleheads, lots of mallards,4 song sparrows, a winter wren, and ample glaucous winged and thayers' gulls. My one bird observation besides the commute on Wednesday was 2 northern flickers flying over HPR when I was driving to Cheryls to solve my costume emergency.


Checked the channel Thursday afternoon on my way in to UAS. The gull population was very thinned out by the ramp. There were 14 longtails, a goldeneye and 2 pelagic cormorants in the count zone.



Tuesday I went to the Forest Service to return Mary's flora and look at Brad's collection of odd weeds and composites he collected from Kosciusko island. I'm still thinking about the plant that looked alot like a multi-headed Aparigidium (now Microseris). It fits Microseris except for the multiple flower heads. I had to look at the characteristics for Taraxacum to make sure we weren't ignoring that possibility. The fruits didn't look quite right. It took me awhile to persuade Brad to keep a small part of the collection here, so that we could look at it more closely (the bulk of it goes to UAF). Unfortunately, I ran out of time and energy to look at it that day and haven't gone back yet.

I did decide that I needed to construct my own key to the composites that occur in southeast, since the genera have changed so considerably.

Sunday was stormy as promised. I didn't leave the house except to walk to the compost pile and out on the deck to take some photos. The morning southeast wind stayed in the low 3omph range, but once the wind shifted to the south, the velocity picked up. Just after I took this photo the anemometer peaked at 57mph. The gust probably cooresponded to the white area visible just left and above center. It took an effort to open the door against the wind and it was entertaining trying to hold the camera steady. Not sure if I was entirely successful. The worst of the rain came at night, unfortunately the wind was still strong and out of the south, so it was raining indoors as well as out. Didn't find any trees down this morning, just a few branches.

Earlier on Sunday, the feeder birds were not deterred from eating. Several chickadees, with one song sparrow. A robin joined them on the deck railing, but didn't eat. Saturday there were 4 varied thrush in the tree next to the feeder, not sure that I've seen that many thrushes near the feeder at once. Typically when I see that many in the yard, they are eating huckleberries.
The birds wouldn't have had a chance getting at the feeder in the afternoon, it was frequently held sideways by the intense wind.

This morning the petrels were closer to the Poulson's house, also saw a few kittiwakes and mew gulls.

Woke up to the wind this morning, actually fell asleep to its sound as well. This was in contrast to Friday night when I fell asleep listening to whales surfacing in Eastern channel. Not sure how close they need to be to the island to be audible without an open window. Sound does carry rather well from the water up the cliff, I can hear kayakers chatting and sea birds calling clearly in the garden. Lullabys from humpbacks is a less common experience. I'm using lullabys loosely as the sound isn't exactly one that lulls me to sleep, its a bit too abrupt for lulling. Sadly, I've never heard geese overhead when I'm falling asleep in this house. Probably won't get much sympathy for only hearing humpbacks.

Saturady saw a male longtail on my trip to town, 2 common mergansers in the cove and the usual flock of goldeneyes by the Wade's dock.
Walked to dance class, admired the large number of Harlequins on Sage rock, but had to hurry through the park instead of looking for birds. I did find time to stop on Alice island on my way to UAS after dance class. Sat out on a sunny rock and ate my lunch, it was pretty quiet except for a lapland longspur and a mink. The longspur was there when I approached the rock, fortunately I didn't scare it off immediately. Last year it was November 11th that I saw the longspur that Jen reported seeing on Alice island.
The mink walked up to me while I sat there eating my apple. I'm starting to wonder if I smell like a dead fish or some intertidal creature given the number of mink that have visited me this fall. No one has complained so far, maybe they are all too polite?
Did get ample spores from the two Amanitas, not much from the other mushrooms, so I just started plates from the two A. muscaria. I'm hoping to transfer a few germinating spores on Monday. More crossed fingers.

I keep beating my head against the classification of those two subspecies of A. muscaria. I think I'll just accept the PNW key decision to call the yellow form var. formosa with the knowledge that it isn't correct. I can hope that my culture of it is successful and I can send it and a dried specimen or two to someone who wants to beat their head against that issue. If both cultures make it, I can always do the mating study here.
Unfortunately I can't immediately get the issues of Mycotaxon with articles about nomemclatural changes in Amanita. I did find out that back issues of that journal are slowly being made available on the web, but alas not the ones I need. I was tempted to order the t-shirt with the logo of a dinner plate with an Amanita with the caption "bad taxonomy can kill". Nice summary of one motivation for continuing with the sometimes frustrating project of coming up with a accurate list of fungi for the Sitka area. I did briefly look at Tuloss' key to Amanita of the PNW linked on the mushroom expert (major headache).
Just to add to the fun, started looking into the Hericium situation. Two of the sources I use most frequently for keys & descriptions differ in their treatment of this genus. The key in PNW key council seems like a better key http://www.svims.ca/council/Toothe.htm#nHer than the one available on the mushroom expert site (no offense, I really appreciate all the work he has done).
In the PNW key (and descriptions) a major seperation is based on whether the fruiting body is branched or not, the next step is based on the comb-like or clustered arrangement of the spines, then the last break is based on host. The only species I've found locally is H. abietis, it is branched with clusters of short spines and grows on conifers. I've mostly found it on cut logs in campgrounds, probably because I visit Starrigavan alot in the fall. In the PNW key the hardwood host choice with a fungus of similar features will lead one to H. americanum.
Now for the confusion. If a person uses the mushroom expert site (which has a great 2nd paragraph on this genus), the first choice is again one of branching or not. The second choice for an unbranched fungus is obviously a work in progress (again I kowtow to this site regularly). Typically ours are branched, so our next choice is host and geography. If the fungus is on a conifer in the PNW with short spines, the choice is H. abietis. If not as above, the slightly different length of the spines and geography determines the choice. The comb-like or clustered structure of H. coralloides and H. americanum isn't noted and I'm assuming not considered consistant. I'm guessing that it isn't considered a consistant character based on the photos included of H. coralloides, only one of which shows the comb structure.
In an attempt to figure out why these two sources disagreed, I looked through the works cited. I thought I had it figured out when Ginn wasn't cited on the PNW site. No such luck, since the paragraph preceding the PNW key states that the key is based on Ginn's treatment of the genus. Unfortunately once again I can't immediately get my hands on the original reference. The one Ginn paper I could access discussed the restriction of H. abietis to western North America, but didn't mention any geographic restriction of H. americanum in the paper (although it did speak to host specificity). I guess I'm happy that I haven't found a Hericium on a deciduous tree near Sitka yet. I'll have to look harder for such a beast (I seem to gravitate to puzzles) and turn in a few interlibrary loan requests.

Still blowing intensely out here. I haven't had to take the bird feeder down yet, so it isn't too bad.

Another beautiful sunny, cool day. Woke up Friday morning to a frost. The garden beds and boardwalk had a thin layer of frost, the temperature was 33 at the house.
The goldeneyes were by the Wade's dock Friday morning and several fork-tailed petrels were near Kutkan Island.
Started the second round of PCR using Cornus and Gentiana, have to wait until Monday to run the gel, so no idea of results. While I was working with Josh and Caleb on that set-up, Chris and Lacey set up and ran the gel with the products from the nested PCR with Coptis and Trichophorum. I'm more than a little frustrating that they didn't draw a map of the layout in my lab book. We looked at the stained gel after they went to their next class and had no idea what we were looking at. Were the bands something we were looking for or a control?

One bit of frustration did work itself out, the added agar to the MMN media did the trick and I had usable media to transfer cultures. Subcultured several dark septate hyphae from Carex livida, Cornus suecica and Trichophorum root pieces that were placed on corn meal agar.

Decided that I needed to collect the Amanitas, so went to Totem park and walked around the loop. It took me awhile, but I did find both color forms that seemed to be in okay shape. Also collected a few Craterellus and Lactarius rufus. Finally saw the Buffleheads in the river as well as Goldeneyes, mallards and mergansers. There were surf scoters and harlequins just off shore the west side and I could see the petrels near Kutkan Island from the beach. I felt like I was cheating my lab time, but it was nice to go for a walk in the morning, instead of being confined to the afternoon.
What I wanted to accomplish with the mushrooms, besides looking more carefully at the subspecies of A. muscaria, was to try to culture some of the fungi from spores. I surface sterilized the cap with 2.5% bleach and cut a wedge from each species and placed it gill side down on a slide in a petri dish and covered it up for the night. I'm hoping that the MMN media has the requisite nutrients to allow growth. It seems like a possibility, since it was listed as a growth media for some of the chanterelle isolates.

Spent the late afternoon at the rifle range in the interest of not wounding an animal. The last time I was there, Deirdre slept through the event in her car seat, so it has been a few years. I forgot how truely awful the noise is, especially when the folks in the next range shelter are using cannon size rifles. No surprise that my 100 yard markmanship needs a little work. I did finally manage to get a couple of shots where they were supposed to be, but it was rather pathetic. At least I didn't scope myself. I was also relieved that I didn't wake up with a bruised shoulder. I did manage to amuse Ian though, so it was worth the effort and minor pain.

Went home around 9pm after my waitress shift at "Art and Soul". The stars were visible and the snow was glowing on the mountains, no northern lights, but the night was lovely enough without them.

The day started out extremely wet and windy, but stopped raining for the parade. The rain had ice in it when I was driving over the bridge. Fork-tailed petrels were on my path this morning, the first morning in a long while. A group of about 15 barrow's goldeneyes by the dock this morning.

Was excited to find dark hyphae in a few cultures this morning, it might be the fungus that is infecting the roots. Poured a few plates, lit the burner, cut out the fungus to transfer it to a new plate, but opened the new plate and the agar was mush! I'm hoping that it was the low pH (5.6) that kept the media from hardening, added extra agar to the two remaining bottles and re-autoclaved. We will find out tomorrow.
Ran the PCR for the amf specific primers today, more finger crossing. I didn't realize the guess work involved in setting the cycle temperatures. Apparently, the nested PCR can get anomolous annealing because of all of the small pieces of DNA in the mix. A higher temperature apparently reduces this annealing. The idea was to start at higher temps for the first few cycles then gradually reduce the temperature to get a better yield of the initial copies. The thermocycler we have doesn't allow this step down procedure, at least we haven't figured out how to program it to do this. So we will see what happened after we run the gel.
I'm puzzling over a kingfisher in a photo I have from drawing class. The photo is of two kingfishers at Starrigavan flying just above the water one behind the other. The one in front is a female with a rufous belly band, the one behind her has a very faint belly band and is ever so slightly leaner in the body. I haven't been able to find out if all juveniles have this marking or it only occurs in the females.
After the parade, transfer ceremony, pioneer home and p-bar decided to start to straighten out the former Asters... not really the clearest head, so didn't get too far. Aster modestus is now Canadanthus modestus and the another potentially local aster is Symphyotrichum foliaceum var. foliaceum. These two both have 3-5 or 4-6 rows of phyllaries instead of the 1-3 for Erigeron peregrinus. I realized that Anderson probably used this character in his key because the species of Aster and Erigeron he had to sort out could be seperated by this character. I haven't yet delved into all the particulars of the new (to me genera), but at least I have a few generic names to start to sort out.

Probably forgot to mention the snow geese flying over yesterday and the pintail in Indian river.

After two surprisingly lovely fall days, the promised wind & rain have started. I've spent every morning working on the rhizosphere project at Mt. Edgecumbe and the afternoons looking for birds and the occasional mushroom.


Tuesday we ran a second level of amplification on our PCR products to make sure that we actually captured some DNA. One primer was a repeat (ITS-4) and the other was an additional fungal primer (ITS-1F). The gel of the results of this amplification looks good. Today we had space to run the gel of the results from Trichophorum, Triantha, Coptis and Rubus chamaemorus. Each had at least one strong band, Trichophorum had 5. If we have enough BSA we can start to look specifically for va mycorrhizae tomorrow. We should also be able to run a gel of the results of Carex livida, Sanguisorba, Cornus suecica and Gentiana. Although I can see microscopic evidence of the fungi, it is exciting to see the PCR detect it as well. If we can clean up the extracted DNA, we can get the creatures sequenced and identify them. Identifying these fungi through cultural characteristics is alot more difficult, especially because they are reluctant fruiters.


The cultures are growing well, we made more media today to continue the clean up process on the isolated fungi.


Monday afternoon took a quick walk through the park to check on the Amanitas and birds. The Amanitas were looking good given the lateness of the season. Both the yellow form which I am still waffling on as to subspecies and the red form are both fruiting, but I didn't find any many young ones as the last time I saw them. I collected one of each color, unfortunately, my collections turned to mush in the car. I would have thought it was cold enough to keep them. I'll have to try again very soon. Also collected a Clavariadelphus which I haven't managed to look at yet, fortunately it seems a little tougher than the Amanitas.

I find myself constantly looking for grouse when I walk through the park these days, the controversy is vaguely settled except for one hold-out for the spruce grouse. It was pronounced a probable sooty/blue grouse because of its markings and because this species hasn't previously been documented on Baranof island. I agree that because of the range extension, the evidence should be more indisputable, but I'm not so comfortable with the markings. I still think it looks more like the spruce, but am quite willing to accept more experienced opinions. It will be fun trying to find another one, or not trying to find one, since I wasn't looking for anything in particular when it appeared. It is always the way, stop looking and something will come along. Did see a hermit thrush, a robin, several varied thrushes, and winter wrens in the forest.

Tuesday afternoon went to Moller park to find a wind sheltered and sunny spot to catch up on my drawing assignments. I had spent the morning in the lab and it seemed criminal to go back inside when it was such a beautiful fall day. The little bridge was the best spot for basking, lots of juncos around the area, but nothing exotic. Heard a kingfisher on the lake. Wanted to check out the park again so decided to spend the rest of my alloted drawing time in a sunny spot by Indian river in the park. It was high tide, but I found a little bit of river front in the sun on the east side of the park. Managed to finish my homework and see teal, widgeons, one pintail, scads of mallards, mergansers, and harlequins on the river and at the mouth. It was warm enough that my coat was unnecessary. Walking back to the car found a young gray striped tom cat (or it found me) near the river. It was causing alot of vocal alarm in two winter wrens. The cat followed me and wrens flew off. It was a rather beautiful cat, almost tempted to take it home. This temptation only lasted a second or two, the birds in the yard don't need a cat and neither does the garden.
Stopped by the lake on the way back to UAS. The coot, cackling goose, scaups, and mallards were in residence. Was doing almost anything to avoid going inside, so as a last gasp took a look at the channel before going in to my cubbyhole of an office. The gulls were extremely thick, as many as the during herring and longline season in the spring. There was one pair of longtails that I could see in with the gulls.
Tuesday night and tonight was chased home by a couple of storm petrels.

The goldeneyes were by the dock again, more mew gulls and kittiwakes on my morning path.

Ian saw two mink in the garden this morning and I spot-lighted one on the way home tonight. We looked at eachother for awhile on the boardwalk until I moved my head and it scampered off.

Back in the good old days, it was reasonable to call this mushroom Armillariella mellea or Armillaria mellea or Honey mushroom. Alas, once again I'm providing evidence that the latin name changes just as often as the common name. At this time I'm content to call this creature Armillaria ostoyae at least until I find the technical description and find I'm wrong. A large clump of the mushroom are growing in the alder chips by the flower garden behind the house. . They typically appear every fall, usually in October. The color of the cap is a little darker than it appears in the top photo, the second photo color is a bit truer. Honey is a good name for color. No they aren't great photos, but I'm trying to expand my horizons. The annulus and shaggy stem are excellent field marks. An interesting feature that isn't visible in this photo is the long black rhizomorphs that grow out of the stipe base. The rhizomorphs of the mushrooms in the garden are about 3 inches long and look like large roots. The stems are come to a point at the base, and are somewhat fused in some clumps. One other useful feature that is vaguely visible in the photos is the black hair-like scales on the cap. They don't obscure the color of the mature cap and are more obvious on young mushrooms. Honey mushroom grows in large clusters and is typically parasitic on living trees. There used to be a great patch growing out of a mountain ash near the turn-off to the SJ library. I've also found them growing in alders along Indian River.

Tom Volk's site has a preliminary key and descriptions. http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/armkey.html#ost

The mushroom expert is as usual quite entertaining. http://www.mushroomexpert.com/armillaria_mellea.html

Planted the rest of my wild seed collection this afternoon. Used half sand and half sphagnum as a planting medium. Sowed Valerian, Dodecatheon pulchellum, Anemone narcissifolia, Vicia, Lupine, Hiericium and Senecio triangularis. I'll keep the flats in the greenhouse until the heavy rains stop for the fall and get put the garden maurading deer in the freezer. It likes to walk through the beds and I'm not sure what kind of damage it would do to the flats.

Also moved raspberry plants out of the flowers and into their new home. An actual proper looking raspberry bed with posts and wire.

Forgot to mention the 10+ varied thrushes that we saw at Old Sitka on Friday.

6 Juncos, 2 song sparrows, and 7 chickadees at the feeder today. One wren in the garden by the wood shed. I could hear the loons calling from Eastern Channel when I was working in the garden.

It seems like the last few days have been rather busy, but in reality it was Saturdays non-stop schedule ( meeting, dance class, radio station, meeting, airport) that has colored my reflections about Thursday through Saturday.
Kevin White and Jamie Womble flew over from Juneau Thursday afternoon. Kevin has been with the ADF&G since 1999 working in the interior until 2001 when he moved to Juneau. Jamie is a park service biologist working in Glacier Bay on harbor seals. They are both very interesting, pleasant and easy-going people to be around. The fringe benefit of arranging the seminars and housing people is that I get alot more out of each speaker than just an 1.5 hour talk.
Kevin's talk focused on his research on the mtn. goats of Lynn Canal. The money is available for studying the animals there because of potential impacts of the road from Juneau and the Kensington mine. It makes one hope that the goats on Baranof won't receive such an intensive study. Kevin estimated that it costs about $5,000. per goat for the intial collaring. I may have my figures slightly off, but I believe that they have about 60 or so mtn goats fitted with radio collars in three study areas in Lynn Canal. One area is near Berner's Bay and the other two northward along the coast. Some goals of the study is to learn about the home range of the goats , where the critical winter habitat is located and to get additional information about some population parameters e.g. reproductive rates and mortality. We learned how to distinguish a female from a male mtn goat from a distance. Males have horns with wide base and females have a narrow base and the tips of the horns curve back rather abruptly. Mortality rates are what you would expect, males don't tend to make it through the winter as often as females because of body fat loss due to the rut. The males cover alot of ground during the rut presumably looking for females in estrus, whereas the females tended to have a smaller range during this period. The GPS derived lines on the hill side for six goats during the rut showed this rather clearly. There was this tidy little group of females hanging out eating and another set of lines representing the highly mobile males. I suppose that there is a balance between mating opportunity and not running off all of ones reserves that is selected for in mountain goats. Females don't have young until their 3rd or 4th year and continue having kids until they die. The growth rings on the horns aren't very accurate after year nine, so goats are designated 9+ after that point. Apparently twins are quite rare.
The winter diet was rather interesting mostly conifers (70%) with the rest lichens, moss, forbs and shrubs. I did find a paper on the winter forage of goats on the Cleveland peninsula. They found that conifers, lobaria, Hylocomium and Rhytidiadelphus made up the bulk of the pellet contents (I believe that this was the study Kevin was citing). Shrubs were the least common. Digestibility must influence detectability of the food, so I wonder if the results could be rather off. It does make sense that the conifers and arboreal lichens are the most accessible in the winter habitat (around 500 ft), since the snow is often covered with lichens from wind and the lower branches would be reachable. I think that if a goat can reach Hylocomium it can get forbs and shrubs as well. Kevin didn't have results from summer forage pellet analysis, he did say that he lacked a good plant species list for his study areas. I volunteered to go along next summer and create one for him (such a sacrifice!). I also volunteered for the early spring moose exclosure studies in Gustavus. If I'm returning to my mycorrhizal work I might as well return to my earlier volunteer botanist habits. I looked at my field notebook from Lynn Canal, it is a little sparse, but interesting. Considering my emotional state that summer it is a wonder that I wrote anything at all. We didn't spend too much time in the alpine that summer since we were trying to get as many forest plots as possible in the places we were working. Our Chichagof and Baranof based plant associations needed some adjustments for the northern mainland.

Thinking about goat use of alpine brought me back to the questions I had about control of flowering in our alpine species. What was especially interesting was that Vaccinium ovalifolium successfully bloomed and fruited, but growing right next to it, V. caespitosum didn't. In general photoperiod keeps plants from blooming in response to winter warm temperature events. Soil temperature seems to be the next trigger, probably because the plants enzymatic processes can function and they can access nutrients and water. One paper I found discussed a study on flowering of alpine plants on Hokkaido Island. They had plots at six elevations and keep track of flowering/fruiting over 3 years. A list of shrubs, V. vitis-idaea, V. ovalifolium alpinum, Harrimanella stelleriana and Phyllodoce aleutica only reproduced by fruit at the lower elevations, at higher they seemed to rely on vegetative growth. The author didn't find this shift in the graminoids and forbs, but did see an increase in semi-evergreen leaves at higher elevations.
Did find another paper about a study that transplanted a number of alpine plants to a greenhouse to determine the relative effect of photoperiod and temperature on flowering. About half were sensitive to photoperiod, some to both light and temperature and others reproduced by seed regardless of length of season (Saxifraga oppositifolia). I still don't really know what is going on with V. caesspitosum, except that there does seem to be a tendency for shrubs to abandon sex in less favorable conditions. I'm trying to think of how often I've seen fruit on that plant in any conditions. Definately not as often as in the forest species.

I haven't seen the petrels for several days, have seen harlequins and 3 white winged scoters on my path home.
Stopped by Moller park, Starrigavan and HPR on Friday with Eric, Kevin and Jamie. I was hoping to finally see a pipit, but no luck. We did see nothern flickers, hermit thrush, juncos, winter wrens, chickadees, scoters, harlequins (there seem to be a more this fall than I remember in the past).

The morning commute once again was missing the petrels, but they returned for my post ballet run home. Yes, lately I only see the birds after dark, but I'm fairly certain its not just a late night dream. There weren't as many birds, nor did they hang around the boat as long as on previous nights.
The group of common loons reported from the west side of the island made their way to the southeast corner of Galankin this afternoon. At least I presume that they were the same birds. It was a group of 10 common loons that were off of Rush's island then floated their way past my house. In addition to the regular garden birds, I saw a hermit thrush perched in the inner branches of a mountain ash.
Identified two of the unknown fungi I collected yesterday. One was Russula urens. It has a green cap, cream spore print, is intensely acrid and an unpeelable cuticle. The gills aslo turn yellowish as the spores mature.
Fortunately there was only one green capped Russula that was acrid tasting. For once, something was easy.
The Tricholoma keys to imbricatum and I'm fairly satisfied with it. I'd like to find a complete description to be certain. The distinctive features of this species is the brown fibrillose cap with a striate margin. The base color of the cap seems cream or white. The gills and stem bruise brown, except for a band of white at the stem apex. The stem has some brown fibrils on it as well. The gill attachment is distinctly notched. The other mystery mushroom is another Tricholoma, but with black fibrils. The gills stain brown on that one as well. I'm too tired to tackle it tonight.
Lucy told me about an 8 inch Gomphus kauffmanii that Rich found by the hatchery. She also said that the Amanita muscaria were fruiting out at Starrigavan. I hadn't thought of that species as a late season fungus, but it certainly seems to be (at least this year).

The muskeg project continues to move forward. Monday I finished cleaning, and dividing roots for DNA extraction, culturing and staining. Today I started cultures from surface sterilized roots of Carex livida, Trichophorum, Cornus suecica collected from swales and hummocks. The Coptis seems to have ended up in the stain (it is difficult to keep track of the students!). I only set up one plate of each species on MMN and cornmeal this time. The 19 plates I set up on Friday are ready to transfer colonies and I am wary of starting more than I can keep up with (okay, I already have). The photo is of a stained root of Carex livida. It shows dark septate hyphae, a large possible ascomycete hypha (on the left) and several vesicles from potential AMF fungi. I'm hoping to successfully culture the former two fungi and pick up the latter in the wheat plants.

Marisa did puzzle out what was wrong with the PCR process that we did last week. Not recipe reading error or mis-programming the thermocycler, but the lack of a certain protein BSA that seems to help amplification of fussy pieces of DNA. The solution Q (a proprietary mystery substance) didn't seem to do the trick with this particular process. We'll start the amplification process again on Wednesday.

Monday was a good day for money. The bit of recovered (via Jan) CREESES (sp?) money came through and the SCS board approved our grant request. Now we can obtain the extra primers and other supplies that will potentially make this project much more successful.

I had a bit of a wild ride home after the SCS meeting. Nice short chop, lots of white caps, but was completely entertained by the amazing flights of the petrels swooping around the bow. They seem to be attracted by the lights and like to play ( I assume) in the bow wake. They appear out of the darkness as a bright white bird at the forward quarter of the skiff, then disappear under the bow. Not really sure how many I saw last night, but they accompanied me across to Morne Island again.

The next morning, no sign of the birds, but it was a calm morning. They chased me home again tonight after class.

Spent a little time (one hour) at the USFS herbarium trying to puzzle out a few taxonomic questions. I looked through the Erigeron collection to look at the differences between E. humilis and E. peregrinus. The most consistent character beside the degree of hairiness and general look of the plant is the quite beautiful dark purple cross walls in the hairs. They were clearly visible with a hand lens, not to my unaided eye. On larger plants the hairs had a lavender cast to them that wasn't visible in smaller plants. The size of the plants was extremely variable as was the degree of hairiness (although all were pretty hairy). There were collections from Yakutat, Skagway, Bear Mtn, and Chichagof Island at Iyouktug crk and Seal Crk Mtn(Freshwater Bay). The later was a JD collection. Found another Erigeron species that allegedly occurs in southeast, E. glacialis var. glacialis. It keys out right next to peregrinus in group 12 of the FNA and I haven't had the time to try to puzzle that particular tangle. E. humilis feels a bit more certain.

Briefly looked at the Antennarias and Saxifrages. No help there. The Antennarias in the collection are mostly species rosea, the others didn't look that distinctive, but I didn't put too much time into it. Sorting that group out will take a dissecting scope and a little more time. At least, A. monocephala and pink bracted versions of A. rosea seem to be easy ones to recognize.

The other vaguely productive task I did begin to accomplish was looking through the Triantha folder. All were labeled T. glutinosa, but I could seperate the plants in two stacks based on prescence of hairs with the punctate glands. Only one of the plants had a more globose inflorescence (why are there so many words with c's and s's?). I was hoping that there would be a drawing of the three species that are reported for southeast in the book version of the FNA, but no luck.

It was a little frustrating that there weren't any specimens of Saxifraga lyallii in the herbarium. There was a specimen of a saxifrage that I hadn't seen before, S. cernua from Bear mtn. Bear Mtn just keeps coming up...

I don't think that Bear mtn is especially unique, just a more accessible higer alpine. I would really like to spend some time on some of the Baranof island peaks. Maybe I should put my Backdoor money in a jar and save it for a helicopter charter. Not sure that I could live without Bernadettes's cookies.

Spent a good part of the afternoon walking through Totem Park and driving out to Starrigavan looking for birds and mushrooms. Decided to deviate from my recent habits and venture to the west side of Totem park. Was rewarded with some interesting mushrooms. Collected a green Russula, a few Lactarius and a couple of Tricholomas (one of which I know I collected last year and abandoned). There were still ample Russula bicolor, Lactarius rufus, Hydnum repandum and a few small Chanterelles. There were abundant fruitings of Amanita muscaria var. flavivolvata and formosa or guessowii. My indecisiveness about the variety is because of variation in the way the subspecies are dealt with in different treatments. There were some mushrooms that were bright yellow and others that were bright orange. I'm not convinced that the two color forms I found were different subspecies. I'd like to look a bit more carefully at them. Once again, the mushroom expert has a good discussion and links to Dr. Tulloss's site on Amanitas which looks pretty interesting. http://www.mushroomexpert.com/amanita_muscaria.html

the direct link is to Tulloss's site is http://pluto.njcc.com/~ret/amanita/species/muscgues.html

Maybe tomorrow I'll collect one of each color and see what other differences I can find. Did see the golden-eyes at the river mouth. I keep forgetting to note that there has been a group of about 20 goldeneyes by the Wades dock every morning since this weekend.

Finally saw a Hooded Merganser this fall out at Starrigavan. Not much else jumped out at me out there, but I was starting to feel guilty for avoiding work and didn't stay long.

Fortunately, I finished grading rather quickly and was able to go guilt free to Swan Lake before drawing. Found the cackling goose, the green winged teals, the ring necked ducks and the coot, so could go contentedly indoors again.

Spent most of the day on the island catching up with chores both outdoors and in. The ones outdoors included harvesting the apples off the very odd and unknown type of apple tree in the back garden and digging one of the beds of carrots.

The apple tree was given to me several years ago by Ed Buyarski who used to live in town. It was a tree that had lost its label, so no one had any idea what type of apple it is. It isn't a great one, but the apples make reasonable apple sauce and pies. Eating one fresh is not a wonderful experience. The tree is about 12ft tall and rather odd in appearance mostly because I've never been brave enough to prune it into a regular shape. It is probably long past time to take it in hand, but it seems to be doing fine as is (and I'm still a total chicken). The apples are often oddly shaped and there were several twin apples this year. The laundry basket was almost full, which is an excellent harvest for this particular tree. As I don't have another apple tree, I'm assuming that the many crab apples in the garden are serving as pollen donors.

The carrots looked more like prime examples of their kind and taste quite good. I left the last bed of carrots covered in remay in case the deer return or the weather gets colder. I have covered them up with kelp to keep the ground from freezing, but usually I just dig them so the carrots are close at hand for eating. I'll hopefully get to them some time in the next week or so.

There were ample birds in the garden today. Chickadees, juncos, song sparrows, varied thrushes, ruby crowned kinglets, a flicker and a hermit thrush (with pink legs). I was treated to some very interesting sounding group calls by a group of 4 ruby crowns working the mountain ash and maple for insects. What I'm interpreting as their "are you there" type of call is a funny nasal sounding note that I hadn't associated with this bird (or maybe hadn't heard before). They were hawking for insects with very short flittery little ventures from the branches. They seemed a bit more tentative in appearance than the hawking I watched a warbler do last spring at Moller park.

I heard a bird when I was in the garden that I couldn't place at all and couldn't find even though I heard it for quite awhile. I finally decided that I was hearing something on the water so ventured down the point east of the house where there is a good view of the rocks below. Never did find a likely bird, but did see a mink down on the rocks. I watched it get drenched (actually completely buried) by a wave, then scramble up out of sight. The cliff is rather overhung, so it isn't possible to see the actual cliff safely from the top. While I was searching the water and rocks for the mystery bird, the mink scrambled up to me, we both startled and it zoomed off again. Not sure why a tiny mink made me jump, especially when I knew it was in the area. I have managed to hold still once while a mink walked up to me, but I was rather numb at the time which might have helped. Nothing like wading up to one's thighs for a skiff in 19F weather with a 25knot wind to cool one down. After the mink scare, had to go inside and be a good mom and make cookies for a dinner.

On the way to town for the cross country dinner, saw a number of petrels. I really do love to watch them fly, they are really a pleasure that I look forward to in the fall.

The saga of the spruce grouse continues...Jan told me that she made a copy of the video for Kent to take to Fairbanks tomorrow to show the people at the museum. Apparently, he watched the video and agreed that it looked like a spruce grouse. I'm hoping that the Fairbanks folks agree. (yes, just for the glory of it all) It would be interesting to have seen the first documented spruce grouse on Baranof, but also because it will be fun trying to come up with the story of how it (or presumably they) got here. The ADF&G site says they can only fly for about a mile. Looking at the straits, the only possibility is from the mainland near Glacier Bay, down Chichagof and then to Baranof around Peril strait. I'm waiting for the verdict.

Friday
Had a wild ride into town in the morning. The petrels numbers seem to be up and they were thickest by the harbor mouth. Went behind the Centennial building on my way to the school to check the visibility of the petrels, a person didn't need a skiff to see the birds today.
Spent most of the morning and early afternoon working at Mt. Edgecumbe. The students poured gels and set up the electrophoresis run for yesterday's PCR samples. Unfortunately something went wrong with the PCR, even the positive control didn't yield any DNA. Also unfortunate is that the amplification program wasn't saved by the thermocycler, so it is difficult to tell what went wrong. We can try again on Monday.

While the class worked on the gels, I autoclaved media & poured the MMN and cornmeal agar plates. Obtaining my weekly dose of pizza allowed the plates to solidify and I innoculated them after lunch.
I surface sterilized the roots of Kalmia, Ledum, Empetrum, V. oxycoccus and Cornus serica with 2.5% bleach, chopped up the fine roots with a single edged razor blade and put approximately 5 spots of root on each plate. I used 3 MMN and 2 cornmeal plates for Kalmia, Empetrum and Oxycoccus, and one MMN for Cornus and Ledum. The plates are living on the bottom rack of the plant stand covered with foil. I'm thinking that they don't need light or much heat. I plan on starting the cultures from the sedges, Coptis and more Cornus on Monday. Decided that I needed a little time to do other tasks.

Worked a little on a bolete that someone had dropped by UAS for me to identify. Apparently it came from the old post office site on Japonski (not sure where that is). I'd like to find more specimens and know what the host tree is. I managed to prop the one I had so that the pore surface was on two microscope slides by employing random kitchen detritus. Good think I'm not that tidy. It worked well, I ended up with two slides covered with spores which made it easy to describe the color and look at the spores under magnification. The spores made a lovely light yellow brownto somewhat olive colored pore pattern on the slides. The spores were elongate and smooth. I desperately need a micrometer if I'm going to be serious about these descriptions. The cap is a warm nut brown or maybe medium toast colored. The pore layer was quite yellow, but has become browner because of the spores. The stem is yellow with scabers that can only be seen with a hand lens. The cap flesh is white and turns yellow on exposure or bruising. Both the cap and the stem turn dark in 3% KOH. I haven't cut sections of the cap as of yet, so I can't say what the microscopic structure looks like. The best fit is Boletus subglabripes aka Leccinum subglabripes.
The mushroom expert has a helpful discussion http://www.mushroomexpert.com/leccinum_subglabripes.html

Someone from Juneau emailed a photo of Hydnellum peckii or at least what looked like H. peckii. I asked some questions about the fungus when I emailed the identification, but haven't heard back yet. No idea who gave them my email address. Mary Willson?

On the way to town and again going back home on Saturday, the storm petrels were thick through out Crescent bay. There were probably 20 or 25 of them spread from the park to the bridge area.

The other odd sight today, was what looked like a hermit thrush with bright yellow legs and a strong eye ring perched on the deck railing near the feeder. Not very hermit thrush like behavior and the picture of the hermit thrush doesn't have very yellow legs, but that was most likely what it was. It didn't stay too long.

Wednesday was a nice day, unfortuately had to spend too much of it indoors spinning my wheels. Did startle a mink on the boardwalk on my way to town and found a lone marbled murrelet on the way home yesterday afternoon. Noticed that Bear Mtn has a much more extensive frosting of snow. There was also snow on Verstovia/Arrowhead and on the Sisters.

On Tuesday's walk through the park I collected a Russula that I call either "teguila sunrise" or "rosy fingered dawn" depending on my mood. It keys to Russula bicolor and fruits abundantly every year. The taxonomy is as usual vague and unconvincing. This year I'm making a slightly better effort to describe/name the local Russulas (I've been thinking about this project for the last million autumns).
There was a large group of R. bicolor in one area with many young Sitka Spruce next to a cut bank. The cap is a carmine-pink red with a yellowish center. The margin is striate. The cuticle peels around the margin, stopping about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way toward center. The stem only slightly bruises gray, but only after sitting around for 24hours. The stem and spore print are white. The taste is intensely hot. The spores had pronounced amyloid warts (with iodine, not Melzers). Cut a wedge section of the cap and a cross section of the wedge to look at the hymenium. I'm a little out of practice, and a new razor blade might have been a good idea, but I could see that the cystidia were clavate in shape. There were a few basidia without spores visible as well. Ringed the coverslips with nail polish so I could take them to town in hopes of getting photos. Hope to post them tomorrow. I'm guessing that it would make sense to take a photo of the cap.

Thursday was sunny again and there was frost on the dock in town. The dock on Galankin only had a tiny trace and the low at the house was 41F. Heard the flicker again by the dock, but didn't see it. The chickadees have re-discovered the feeder on the deck. It probably helped to add seed. A ruby crowned kinglet perched on the branch next to the feeder, but didn't come to the deck.

Ran the first samples of root DNA from Coptis, Cornus, Triantha, Gentiana, Rubus, Carex livida and Trichophorum through the PCR process today. Used 2 primers for the first round. If we get any positives, we will use the more specific primers (Glomus, Gigaspora, Acaulospora etc). We should see something tomorrow, if there is anything to see.
Went back to the now pock-marked from sampling muskeg to collect 3 more samples each of Cornus, Coptis, and the two sedges. This time collected from both the swale and hummock areas. Did manage to find all species on both microsites, but it wasn't easy. I collected a more roots of Empetrum, Kalmia, Vaccinium oxycoccus and Triantha as well so I can try to isolate some of the fungi by culturing from the roots. Managed to leave my glasses in the muskeg...

Walked down to the river mouth in the park on my way back to Mt. Edgecumbe with the samples. Still lots of Scoters, but the Harlequins had moved a little further out. Saw a few widgeons, ample mallards and a plethora of gulls. Collected a Lactarius deliciosus to look at the spores and a Pholiota. Looked them over for something different, no luck. Continued my circuitous route to Japonski island via Swan Lake. The Cackling goose was still there. It joined the mallards in the begging brief frenzy. Two scaups were on the lake. Heads mostly tucked or I might have practiced distinguishing greater from lesser.

Had an entertaining run looking for the last ingredient of the culture media. After doing some reading, decided to try both corn meal and MMN agar. Was a little nervous about the ingredient list in the latter, but managed to locate all, but one ingredient, malt extract. Tried every lab in town...no luck. Next tried finding home brew supplies. Called liquor stores, health food stores, again no luck. Fortunately found one helpful acquaintence (thanks to Phil Burdick) with a ready supply of dry malt extract. I'm sure that it isn't exactly the same as media grade, but hopefully it will supply the magic ingredient. Never a dull moment.

One storm petrel on the way home just outside Crescent Hbr. Someone told me there was a pod of killer whales in the channel. Alas , I only saw gulls.

The weather didn't exactly slack off. The wind picked up from the west and drove the heavy rain up the roof line and out through the regular leak near the dining table.
Appropriately found storm petrels outside Crescent hbr in the morning. A southwest wind seems to drive them into the inner islands.
Walked through the east loop of Totem park in the early afternoon. Saw about 60 Harlequins near the mouth and toward Eagle way. Also found about 12 or so surf scoters, a scaup (only saw it once), 2 widgeons, 2 mergansers, mallards and one duck that might have been a shoveler. Looking at Sibley in the evening, I suppose it could have been a female cinnamon teal, but I'm liking the former diagnosis.
Just before drawing class, went over to Alice Island to eat my dinner. It was still rather blustery, but did see a golden crowned sparrow and a sparrow that has me stumped. It had 2 wingbars, a rufuous striped crown, pink bill and no markings on its chest. In the national geographic book, it looked like an immature white-crowned sparrow, but in Sibley it looked more like a chipping sparrow. I'm leaning toward the chipping sparrow, but haven't checked the local distribution.
Was accompanied home after class by the storm petrels. They flew back and forth through the lights from the harbor to the north side of Morne island.

Transplanted the rest of the experimental plants.

On and off heavy showers today, the wind has turned to the southwest so perhaps this bit of weather will ease up this evening.

This morning as I was driving under the ramp at Crescent Hbr, I heard a flicker call which seemed a little out of place. Mostly out of place because it was loud enough that I could hear it over the engine, so I assumed that it had to have been quite close. As I turned the skiff around I saw the flicker perched on the dock rail near the bottom of the ramp. The flicker cooperatively stayed put as I tied up the skiff and walked down the dock toward it. Instead of flying away as I approached, the bird started hopping up the ramp. Looking up, I noticed another flicker perched on the life jacket box watching the hopping flicker. As I watched the hopping bird, it went up the length of the ramp, as soon as it reached the top, the perched bird flew down to it. I couldn't quite see the interaction, but there wasn't any audible noise associated with it. They both flew off when I was about 3/4 of the way up the ramp. I've seen several flickers in the green strip by the harbor, but never on the dock or ramp.

Transplanted the muskeg swale soil plants today in 175g of autoclaved sand and soil (1:1 mix). Unfortunately we ran out of sand to transplant the hummock soil plants, so I'll have to complete the task tomorrow. The good news was that I made it out to Sandy beach in time to be able to collect sand. Hopefully, Marty will autoclave the sand this afternoon. It was time to transplant, the wheat roots were just starting to grow through the bottom of the dixie cups.
I'm seriously kicking myself for forgetting to surface sterilize the seeds, I may just start another round of the bioassay next week. I did set up controls, but why wait to find out that there is a problem. I'd like to use growth tubes instead of cups to cut down the total soil volume and use all diluted inoculum soil instead of going through the dixie cup step. I'm also fairly certain that I'll want to run the bioassay again in the late spring because I'm worried that the fungi will less active this time of year even in warm conditions. All of this second guessing reminds me intensely of my master's research... I was a bit more focused and careful then (and highly motivated to finish). At least I didn't forget to sterilize seeds, considering the amount of time it took to set up and grow my experiments, it was a good thing. Focus, I'm not so sure about, but I can be a bit more careful. I'm patiently waiting for a nice day to return to the cedar epiphytes project. I need a long afternoon to get enough trees to feel comfortable about a stand sample. Maybe "scattered" is a better descriptor of my behavior.

Briefly chased a report of a yellow-rumped warbler on Alice Island (it might have been on Japonski). Carla and Tedin saw one Sunday on one of the islands. I was fairly certain that Carla meant Alice, but now I'm not so sure. Might be worth a call. No warblers, but there were Savannah sparrows.

Passed a sea otter between Morne and Galankin Islands on my way home. Only the second one I've seen in the islands.