Saturday, December 29, 2007


Decided to abandon the plans to go to Goddard because of Wednesday’s forecast for west winds to 25 mph and seas to 24feet. For some reason heading over to Brent’s beach cabin seemed like a friendlier proposition. We loaded the skiff with what seemed like enough gear for 2 weeks and headed north through the channel. I opted for the bow seat, so I was wearing polypropylene pants and shirt, wool pants, a wind bloc pullover and jacket with rain pants and coat over all. Not to forget the life jacket, hat, and water proof gloves. I could barely move, but I was warm and dry. The swell was noticeably large the entire way from the north breakwater to the beach. Between Crow and Guide islands was particularly sloppy. I was happy to have my back to the seas and the view. Did see a number of Common murres and one pair of Marbled murrelets along the way to Kruzof. Because of the high tides and storms the water was full of logs, seaweed and misc. detritus. It might have been a bit of a nasty ride after passing Crow Island, but the beach landing was truly gnarly. In fact, we looked at it for quite awhile before deciding to make the attempt. The breaking waves were mostly in the 1 to 2ft range, but there was the occasional 3 to 3.5ft wave. Ian jumped out at the beach and I tossed him stuff as fast as I could, once Deirdre made it the bow, I jumped/slid onto the beach too and Deirdre tossed us both stuff. What the unloading crew didn’t see was the wave that went over the stern; we did see the debris floating to the beach though. The wave turned the skiff broadside, then stern to the beach. We had it unloaded; now we had to get it off the beach. It took all four of us to push it out just enough to barely get the prop in the water (and out of the sand). The rooster tail of water was substantial when Jeff got the outboard going. Fortunately getting the skiff tied up to the mooring buoy went a lot easier, the surf wasn’t too much for the little plastic kayak. The only damage was one prop blade was slightly bent in the sand.

It was near high tide when we arrived which was useful for moving the pile of supplies. The cabin was in good shape, but is rather dark inside compared to the cabins at Fred’s creek and Shelikof It took a bit of effort to get the fire going, the provided wood was a little wet, bringing kindling from home was quite useful. I forgot to bring an axe, but the Forest Service fortunately provided a good axe and splitting maul at the cabin. We spent the rest of the daylight hours getting the cabin in order and walking on the beach. Saw one varied thrush and a robin in alders north of the cabin. Seven Black turnstones were working the drift line near the high tide peninsula to the small island. That night it hailed, snowed and blew.

The next morning Jeff and Ian went hunting and Deirdre and I went north to see if we could find an easy way to the cave near Pt. Brown. We didn’t manage to find a suitable path. We were stopped by a chasm that was just a bit wide for us to jump. We wandered up slope to look for an easy way down. No luck. We ended up above the cave on a headland. Lots of deer sign, but no animals.
We decided to head for Kamenoi beach while the tide was low. The beach fringe path made this trip much more straightforward than our first morning walk. The name Kamenoi apparently means rocky, I can only believe that the point was named first. The beach is sandy, rather coarse, but still sand. There are a couple of large rocks in the middle of the beach, but I’m still thinking that the point was the origin of the name. I hadn’t been on this beach since Deirdre was a toddler. It used to be a great razor clam spot. What I really remember about this beach is one of my first “stupid parent” tricks. Managed to take everything on the excursion, but what was needed the most. Why would anyone take a toddler clam digging without bringing extra clothes? Fortunately she can take care of herself now.
The beach fringe forest was a classic example of what we used to call a Pisi/canu or Sitka spruce/ pacific reedgrass stand. Lobaria linita/oregana would be good name to add to this forest type. This spot was interesting in how far inland the grass understory layer continues inland. The area was also interesting because of the incisement or ridges semi-parallel to the beach. The height of the ridges seemed more extreme than what I would expect from uplift, maybe some of them are due to basalt flows in addition to uplift Should always carry a shovel so I can test these ideas. Also saw 4 (maybe 3) Shore pines in one spot on the edge of the forest. Not a common sight around here.
Deirdre found a couple of basalt cliffs to explore and I collected two mosses and one small orange filamentous alga from the cliffs. I’m pretty sure it is the same orange creature that I’ve found on the basalt cliffs near Pt. Brown. There were three or four sets of deer tracks on the beach, but no other animals. Found a small group of Pine siskins and a Song sparrow and at one winter wren about every 100 yards. The wrens are in the drift wood, I assume eating small arthropods. None of them were too worried about us, just briefly scolded and went back to food gathering. Didn’t find any interesting beach debris except 4 Big skate egg cases (each about 10 inches long). Saw Mew, Thayers and Glacuous-winged gulls, Surf and White-winged scoters, Pelagic cormorants, Pacific loons, Common mergansers, Harlequins, Barrow’s Goldeneyes, Buffleheads and 1 Horned grebe on the water side. There were at least 10 Double-crested cormorants on the rocks in front of the cabin.

After lunch, Deirdre was willing to follow her mother toward the muskegs west of the cabin while Jeff and Ian tried for deer north of the cabin. The forest was a little brushy, but there were so many deer and people trails that it was relatively easy to get to the muskegs. Some nice cedar along the way, found one with the plaited looking bark that I associate with the largest or oldest of the yellow cedars. The bryophyte mounds on the cedars were dominated by Herbertus , the smaller ones by Tortula tortuosa. Both mounds had Apometzgeria, Plagiochila and Radula growing with the dominant species. There were the usual flat sheets of Frullania mid trunk and Isothecium cardotti toward the base of the cedars. I should probably positively identify which species of the liverworts I’ve been collecting from the cedars.
The muskeg had just enough snow to make it difficult to do a proper search for juniper and probably quite noisy for hunting. Didn’t find any juniper, birds or deer sign. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the easiest path back to the beach either.
We stopped at one of the small beaches between Crab and Kamenoi pt to watch the birds. A group of seven Pacific loons (could actually see the dark necklaces) was in the cove.

Decided to take one more walk down the beach before the retreat to the cabin for the night. Was turning to head into the forest to go around a point found a different sparrow. It had white wing bars, a light breast with one central spot, and brown stripes on its head with one brown eye strip that tended downward. I was fairly certain that it was a White-crowned, but after looking at Sibley, decided that it was a Tree Sparrow.

While trying to follow the sparrow around the beach fringe, I noticed a large flat gray lichen on the lower trunk of a Sitka spruce. All I could tell in the dim light was that it was something I hadn’t seen previously. The white spots on the underside were indicative of a Pseudocyphellaria or a Sticta. It wasn’t the right color for the latter genus, nor for the more common species of the former. I had found one piece of P. anomala on the ground earlier in the day. Had to wait until I could look at the Macrolichens of the PNW before deciding the lichen was P. rainierensis. I’ve read about the lichen, but hadn’t found it previously. It is a rare lichen through out its range and is considered to be associated with old growth in the PNW. In the lichen inventory of the Tongass, this lichen was found on Spruce and Crab apple along salt water beaches, same habitat that this one was growing (is still, I only took a small sample).
The Black turnstones which had wandered off during the day were back in their spot at high tide.

That night saw my second live marten. I was sound asleep on the top bunk; this is only impressive if one has slept on a narrow plywood bunk, when I was woken by a very loud pounding. The wood in the cabin amplifies every sound, a person rustling in their sleeping bag is quite loud, so the rest of the family ignored the sound, thinking it was me accidentally flinging things out of my bunk (I did this repeatedly). With headlamp in hand, I looked through the front window of the cabin. Hanging on the door to the cooler was a marten. It had its front paws through the top of the screen and the lower ones on the bottom wooden ledge. It was shaking the daylights out of the door trying to get it open. The door was held closed by a hook and eye latch and I’m surprised that the marten wasn’t successful in wiggling it open. Its ears were laid back and it was making odd noise (not quite growling). There was a particularly smelly hunk of liverwurst in the cooler which was most likely the object of interest. It wasn’t too worried about the light or me, but eventually it stopped the shaking, shifted position to peer briefly through the window at me, then jumped on top of the cooler and disappeared. It came back at least one more time that night, but didn’t have any more luck.

The other noise that started in the night was the surf, it had calmed down considerably on Thursday, but at some point in the night the swell had built up again. There was a little snow on the ground in the morning.

Deirdre and I walked back to Kamenoi beach while Jeff and Ian tried hunting again. No deer tracks this morning, but one set of river otter tracks. The otter followed the drift log line to a creek, entered the creek and I didn’t follow it further. The surf was huge. The waves were breaking on the large rocks and splashing about 15ft high. It didn’t seem like conditions were going to be too good for loading the skiff.
We did decide to leave mostly because the forecast sounded like it was just going to get worse. This time we used the boat anchor to off the stern to keep the skiff from coming in too shallow. The shore line was long enough to slowly move the boat toward the beach without grounding it, but shallow enough to allow loading. It still required a lot of frantic flinging of gear so that Ian, Deirdre and I didn’t get wet. Managed to load the boat without further destroying the prop, Deirdre and I stayed dry but Ian got wet to the shins. I did enjoy it when Ian had to pick me up to get me in the skiff. Where I could reach the skiff without wading too deep, the rail was above my chest, no way I could get myself on. I did pull him in after me. The joys of having grown children.

Decided to take a brief peek at Port Krestof, brief because Ian (and it turned out Jeff) was wet.
Oystercatchers, Horned grebes, Canada geese (6), Brant (about 20), Buffleheads, Scaup, Barrow’s goldeneyes, Common and Pacific loons, mallards, Common mergansers, White-winged scoters and a lot of ducks in the river channel that I couldn’t identify.
The ride home was flat calm in comparison with the trip over on Wednesday. Saw 2 groups of sea otters near Crow island. Friday evenings paper had a report of a dead Green sea turtle found in Port Krestof on Thursday. What looked like the same hunters (or at least a similar boat) were on the beach by Pt. Brown maybe hoping for a deer to go with the turtle.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Sunday evening successfully retrieved Deirdre from the potentially endless Christmas travel loop. She didn't suffer, American Airlines put her up in a large hotel room with free wireless near O'Hare airport. In fact she seemed quite rested despite having a rather long day. Fortunately, a year away from island life hasn't caused any noticable loss of skiff skills. Maybe it will always be there for her. Since I didn't teach her how to ride a bicycle or drive a car, I guess it is good I taught her some other transportation skills.


Monday's high tide wasn't quite as high as Sundays. At 15 minutes before the tide, there wasn't a moat around the lot 4 house and the trail was still passable around the north end of the island. Went out to Starrigavan around 1:30 to look for Friday's swans. Probably should have looked on Friday. Lots of mallards, scaups, common mergansers, a few Buffleheads and a Northern flicker. The water from the high tide was still covering the lower places in the meadow and in the forest between the longer side trail into the meadow and the bridge. There was still snow on the boardwalk of the estuary trail and the muskeg trail. There was a flock of about 60 Pine siskins in the alders by the Old Sitka parking lot.

Collected a small mushroom from an alder. It is a light tan to brownish fungus with an short lateral stem. They can be shelving or seperate on the branches. It is the same fungus that I've seen many times in the winter, but never quite finished the job of identifying it. Finally got a good spore print (white), checked the spores for an amyloid reaction (positive) tasted it (mild), cross-sectioned the cap (had a gelatinous layer) and decided that it fits Panellus longinquus. The mushroom acquires a purple/rosy cast as it dries. It is most likely var pacifica decribed by Susan Libonati-Barnes (a former graduate student of Stuntz that I knew at University of Washington). Mycotaxon 20: 205-212 http://www.cybertruffle.org.uk/cyberliber/index.htm. The biggest ones I found are slightly larger than the range described in Arora, but I'm not too bothered by that discrepancy. This fungus fruited on and off through last winter. I mostly remember seeing it on alder, but I believe that it also occured on Mountain ash. I'll have to keep my eyes open.


The bird feeder has been more active the last two days or maybe I'm just around more to watch it. The song sparrows which used to stick to the ground below the feeder have decided that the deck and railing are good for foraging. The juncos have moved to the tube feeder (they didn't go near it before), perhaps because the sparrows are in their former territory. The chickadees remain faithful to their habit of picking up a seed then flying away. I really wonder where they hide it all. I can almost imagine sunflowers blooming out of crevices in the hemlocks around the garden.



Christmas noonish the family walked around the lake during a lull in the hail/rain/sleet. We did take refuge at one point on a porch during one hail event.

Did a Christmas bird species tally on the island and the surrounding water: Common & Pacific Loons, Red-necked grebe, Pelagic cormorants, Bufflehead, Barrow's goldeneyes, Common merganser, Mew, Glaucous-winged, and Thayer's gulls, Bald Eagle, Raven, Northwestern crow, Common murres, Song sparrows, Varied thrush, 4 Robins, Oregon juncos, Chestnut backed chickadees and a Winter wren. Also found 2 dead siskins on the porch where we hid from the hail.

Also collected a small pleurotoid fungus from a very large (old growth) Menziesia near the cabin. The largest ones had caps about 2cm across. The caps were white with enrolled margins and smooth edged gills. It also has white amyloid spores which makes it a Panellus. I haven't decided which one yet.


Seemed to spend much of the afternoon in the kitchen, getting the lamb ready (with a hammer) to bake and attempting my first Christmas pudding. Printed the recipe from the NPR web site after being intrigued by the story a few days ago. Had to make a few substitutions in the recipe, forgot to buy rum and couldn't find the right kind of figs. After brieflly cooking the figs and raisins in brandy and rum (had to substitute scotch ), one is supposed to burn off the remaining liquor. I must have cooked it too long because despite trying several times the liquid wouldn't ignite. The rest of the recipe went pretty smoothly, only substituted blueberries for cranberries and added some walnuts. Managed to get the bundt pan in the big stock pot and steamed the pudding for the required 2 hours. Getting the cake pan out of the pan was a bit of a trick. There isn't alot of room between the stock pot and the pan particularly when wearing oven gloves to avoid being burned by the steaming water. The true pyromaniac moment is just before eating the cake. Heated up 1/3 cup of brandy to almost steaming, poured it over the cake and applied a match. Great blue flame. I applied the match a little fast, because there was still brandy in the saucepan. It also ignited. It is quite fun to pour flaming brandy on a cake. Although the cake tasted just fine, the highlight was definitely the blue flames.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Got out to observe one of the higher
tides of the year this morning. The high was 12.5 ft at 11:22am. There were two 12.8 tides in November and a 12.6 in October, so this wasn't the largest tide. It was however helped along by a large low pressure system and accompanying gale. The photo is of the house on lot 4 which is on fill added to what I assume was an existing beach to expedite the removal of gravel from the quarry (now a lake). On the highest tides the house has a saltwater moat with small waves lapping at the porch. The water covers the trail in front of the house, but it is possible to wade through with rubber boots. I have seen the water deep enough in this spot to necessitate carrying small children. The other place on the trail that was submerged was on the west side of the dock approach. It was too deep to wade without getting wet and there isn't going around because the trail abutts a cliff. I suppose a dedicated person could get around, but I wasn't that motivated.
The tops of most of the dock pilings were about shoulder height for me. Found Parmelia ( probably sulcata) a Brachythecium and a small Vaccinium ovalifolium/alaskense growing on the tops. Impressive with all of the creosote around.
Saw Robins, a Varied thrush, song sparrows, winter wren, juncos, chickadees and golden crowned kinglets on the walk.
Briefly woke up this morning around 6am and saw the fullish looking moon and Mars through the westward facing window of Deirdre's room. The moon was nicely lined up with the window and filled the hallway with light. It was a nice view of Mars and the moon. There was another bright object that I briefly thought must be another planet, but couldn't find one that would fit. Must confess that I've had an underlying doubt about the date full moon. I thought I had checked the Sky in December section in Natural History magazine, but alas I had looked at the November issue . So the full moon is today.

Most of the snow disappeared on Thursday and Friday in the rain and wind of this lovely low pressure system we are enjoying. Crossing my fingers that the weather is adequate for traveling down to Goddard on the 26th. Also crossing my fingers that Deirdre makes it in today. She got out of Chicago where she was stuck yesterday and is hopefully on her way home now.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

We have had about 6 inches of snow on the ground. Most of it fell Sunday night and Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday have been mostly clear and cold. Fortunately kept the water flowing from the lake this time, so can do laundry without worrying about running out of water.

Monday morning the mink tracks started at the far edge of the front porch and continued down the boardwalk. Another set of tracks went off toward the greenhouse. I didn't have time to look at the rest of the garden. The boardwalk set seemed to mostly favor one side of the boardwalk, occasionally cross the other side and continue. The mink would also periodically leave the boardwalk altogether, then return a few feet later. The one side pattern continued on the dock. The tracks stayed close to the edge of the approach and ramp, crossed the dock, went along the dock very close to the bullrail, crossed to the other side and continued. I'm not sure who eats mink in the neighborhood.
Most of the tracks are in groups of three, but tonight there were tracks in pairs. Tonight the boardwalk near the house is pretty much covered with human and mink tracks. Kind of looks like a mink highway. So far, they haven't found a way into the insulation (it is supposed to be covered with plywood). I'm crossing my fingers.
Both Tuesday and Wednesday late afternoon I walked up Indian river trail. The first day I started early enough to make it to the elevated boardwalk before the first bridge before dark, today just went to the cascades. The trail is pretty well traveled, but most people are gone by mid afternoon. The scarcity of other hikers is kind of pleasant when there is snow. The quiet is exceptionally nice. Mostly, I don't mind sharing the trail, but it is alot easier to listen for birds when alone. Not that there was alot of birds to hear. Each day I heard a winter wren or two, it was kind of late in the day though. Today just at the large notched tree up from the cross trail cut off, I heard a western screech owl. It was making some particularly odd sounds, I wasn't sure that it was a weso, the sounds were so strange. Then after a few series of notes (?), it sounded a bit more familiar. It was in a red alder between the trail and the river. It was impressively loud and close. It was my first owl this fall. I thought I might have heard one on Monday in the alders above the lake on the island, but it was faint and not repeated.
Neglected to mention how nice the moonlight was coming through the trees. I had my headlamp on, but only used it in the darkest part of the trail because of the light provided by the moon and reflected by the snow. The moon looked a bit bigger than half (it's full on Christmas eve) and was making irregular looking pools of yellowish light in the snow. The view of the moon from the first muskeg it was rather striking, it was just off directly over Arrowhead.
The few birds I've seen on the island in the morning have been a flock of siskins, a couple of juncos and winter wrens in the commons. The commute has been really quiet lately.

Monday, December 17, 2007

On Friday after a morning of meetings and waking up a new born for the pure pleasure of holding him, I decided to allow myself another simple pleasure. I took a walk up to the first bridge on Indian river. At least I intended to stop there, failed to stop and walked up to the first muskeg because I could just see bits of blue sky between the trees.


Didn't linger too long in the muskeg because it was a bit late in the afternoon. Wandered a little along the river to look at the extensive patches of Panellus serotinus (some quite large) on many alder, collect a piece of Polystichum and Conocephalum. Decided that I would be quite unlikely to confuse Conocephalum with Preissia no matter what the state of the collection. Also am convinced that the Polystichum in the valley bottom is braunii. Each pinnule definately narrows down to a short (very short) stalk. The species from the waterfall (P. setigerum) doesn't have a narrow base.
On the way down the trail on the boardwalk section (near the large spruce that fell over the river) were three or four pieces of bark. I was curious how many types of epiphyte lichens occured on each. So far I've identified 4 crustose lichens and a pin lichen; Mycoblastus sanguinarius, M. affinus, Pertussaria spp, what is probably a Biatora and Stenocybe (clavata?). The Biatora is very tentative. It is one that I've found before, but haven't been terribly satisfied with its identification. The thallus is green and seems to consist of balls of algae. The apothecia are unrimmed, pinkish brown with ellipsoid spores in spherical asci. No reaction to KOH or bleach. The species covered in Brodo aren't a very good fit, but neither is anything else I can find in the book.
I didn't see the Stenocybe until I had the bark under the dissecting scope. It is a very small ca. 1/4 inch tall black "pin" growing out of the bark. It isn't obviously lichenized, but they are generally treated with the lichens. Lichenized thallus? This genus is very host specific, the best I could do was S. clavata which occurs on western Hemlock. There have been a couple of collections from southeastern Alaska and British Columbia. The one I found has spores that are regularly 3 septate instead of 4 to 7 septate. I'll continue my search. For a more satisfactory answer.
Sunday was the Christmas Bird count for the Sitka area. The forecast wasn't promising, but the day turned out to be a rather nice one. My plans kept changing for the day, but I settled on doing the Herring cove to Beaver Lake to Theobroma route in the morning and skiff around Japonski in the afternoon with Scott Harris and Andrew Thoms. I was curious to see Andrew's paths through the area and thought that there was at least the possibility of a surprise type of bird. No such luck on the surprise bird. In fact we didn't see or hear a bird in the woods until a flock of siskins flew over us in the muskeg. No, I did forget a winter wren by the creek above the falls. Did get to catch up on local politics and stories on the way and went on a slightly different path than I had been on previously to the lake. Another place with alot of area to explore.
It started snowing as soon as we entered the forest, which was much more enjoyable than the promised rain.
Nothing in the frozen lake, nothing in river, or the campground. Did start finding birds when we were above the clarifying tanks at the mill. About 10 ravens, a crow and a junco...we were on a roll for a few minutes. Stopped to admire the bears in their tank. They seemed to enjoy their brussels sprouts. Was tempted to count the domestic geese and the chickens at the farm, but decided that we would do better on the water route.
Scott's boat wouldn't start, deadish battery for a 115 horse. The charger connected to the kicker wasn't going to do the job in the time we had available, so I drove the lee shore skiff.
The birding improved rather noticably on the water. Traveled from Crescent Harbor through Middle channel around Makhnati and Signal island, inside of Battery and back through the channel to Crescent. The greatest diversity of birds was in between the runway and Makhnati and the channel. The water was rough enough around Signal to make it rather difficult to focus on much of anything. Kind of like birding in a washing machine with better light. This was only a bit frustrating because there was an interesting group of shorebirds on the shore of Signal that I wasn't quite convinced of the identity. They just seemed a bit light to be the usual surfbirds. Andrew was convinced that it was a mix of surfbirds and black turnstones. Not unlikely, but they didn't look quite right.
Did see Bald eagles, Ravens, crows, Pacific and Common loons, Common murres, Marbled murrelets, Harlequins, Common mergansers, Pelagic and Double crested cormorants, Black, White-winged, and Surf Scoters, Common and Barrows Goldeneyes, Scaups, Long-tailed ducks, Mew, Glaucous winged, and Thayers gulls, Surfbirds, Black turnstones.

Thursday, December 13, 2007



I think it was a bit late when I was writing last night's post. A 9,000 years before present carbon layer wasn't likely to come from pine forest fires as Pine was mostly displaced by that point in time by Spruce and alders. Should probably think abit more about what I'm writing now and then. Sitka spruce isn't a tree that I associate much with fires. I suspect it would have germinated well in the exposed mineral soil that might have been the result of the fires, but it is hard to imagine that species too happy in a dry climate. Maybe the climate was similar to that of the southern coast of British Columbia.
I did talk to Tom Ager about the carbon layer. He hadn't heard specifically about the charcoal layer that Jim Baichtal talked about last night, but said that it did fit in well with the evidence suggesting a warm dry early Holocene climate along the coast of British Columbia through the Gulf of Alaska. The dry, warm period seems to have lasted for a couple of thousand years. The few charcoal layers that Tom has radiocarbon dated came from the same period. He has not looked for charcoal specifically, but found some exposed peat located in road cuts and quarrys.
Managed to bump into Jim Baichtal this morning while searching for coffee. Fortunately for me, he was quite happy to answer my questions about last nights talk. I confirmed that it was the slightly more liquid lower crust that was being displaced. He also said that the thinner, denser oceanic crust was more flexible than the continental crust, bulges more readily? He said he would send a few of the powerpoint slides that pertained to Sitka and a protocol he had developed for sampling in marine clays.

I've included the photo collage that John Hudson sent of the root wad we found in the west valley last week. It was a small tree for the stand, but is a nice start for looking at root wad colonization. I should probably return and measure the size and record a little information about the area.
Looked at the channel on my way back in the building this afternoon, the 85 common mergansers caught my eye. Seems like a greater number than I typically see.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

This evening went to a talk given by Jim Baichtal on the changing shorelines of southeastern Alaska. He is an engaging speaker and did a nice job of pulling most of the pieces of the story together. Alot of the ideas he presented I had heard piecemeal previously, it was very good to hear them knitted together.
I'll see if I can summarize the broader picture of the late glacial history of southeast and his talk. The two peaks of major glacial event of the Wisconsin were around 72,00 and 20,000 years before present. The maps on Tim Heaton's website http://www.usd.edu/esci/alaska/ show the furtherest extent of the ice from the previous ice age (135,000 years before present) covering most of southeast. The maximum extent of glaciers during the Wisconsin glaciation was a bit less and there were significant areas on the outer coast that werent' glaciated. What was interesting about tonight's presentation was how the fore bulge in the earth's crust was used as an explanation for the extent of the refugia. The idea of the fore bulge is that the crust is displaced by the weight of the ice and pushed outward in areas that weren't carrying an ice load. So not just that the ocean depth was shallower because of water being held as ice, but displacement of the crust raising the land. (I really liked his waterbed analogy). One question I'll have to ask him or someone is about the crust, itself, is it the continental crust (thicker but less dense) or the oceanic crust (denser, but thinner) that is being displaced. I'm assuming that it is the lower less solid crust that is actually being displaced and pushing up the upper layers, but I could be wrong and the surface crust is what is being moved sideways and up.
The extent of the bulge would have been quite local, It sounded like it was dependent on the load of nearby ice and perhaps on the thickness of the crust at a given spot. The bulge was much smaller off southern southeast. He had pretty interesting maps of the outer coast of southeast which had the presumed refugia or ice free land. The inside channels were a bit muddier for me. If I'm remembering correctly that shoreline must have been higher than currently. The On Your Knees cave is currently at 490 ft above sea level and ca .6 miles from the shore and has ring seals, arctic fox fossils . I guess that fox could have carried their food up the hill, but it seems likely that the cave was significantly closer to the sea.
He seemed very certain that the bulge around Sitka was huge compared to the bulge on the outside of Prince of Wales island. If I remember right, most of the evidence for the extent of the bulge is the freshwater lake diatoms and pollen that were found in cores taken in Sitka Sound. If the sea level was about 70 fathoms lower and adding in the possible effect from the bulge, the 100 fathom curve might be a good approximation of where the shoreline was. The 100 fathom curve is between 10 and 15 miles off shore. Added to this freshwater evidence and ocean depths, is that the local contractors haven't encountered any marine clays/shells when excavating. Makes alot of sense if the shoreline was way off shore. The marine clays are quite distinct colorwise, even if there weren't clams, the material would be recognizable.
What wasn't clear was if the Queen Charlotte fault was a cliff? Would the bulge affect the crust on the other side of the fault the same way as on the landward side?
Tom Ager had told me about the freshwate diatoms and pollen from Sitka Sound on his visit this summer, so it wasn't a new idea, but seeing the map made it a bit more tangible. We were talking about this last summer while looking our across Sitka sound and I was envisoning walking from Mary's on Harris island to my house on Galankin. I like the image of walking through open Pine and fern forests to town. I'm hoping that Tom comes in April to tell us about the glacial history of Sitka sound. It is sounding more probable.

One thing that was especially intriguing was the carbon layer that Baichtal talked about finding in the 9,000 years present layers. I wasn't sure if that was something that he had only found on the southern islands or if it is more extensive. He was suggesting that the source of the carbon could have been forest fires. That was a new idea for me. Admittedly it isn't a hard leap to make with a pine forest and a carbon layer. I'll have to talk to Tom about it.

Seem to have gotten sidetracked on my glacial history. As the glaciers receeded the weight was lifted, the sea level rose and the fore bulge disappeared. One of the ideas he presented was that the movement of the crust was involved in the volcanic activity that occured near the time period (11,000 years before present for Mt. Edgecumbe), something near Ketchikan (?) and Addington near Noyes Island.
By 8,500 years before present the shoreline seems to be very similar to what it is currently allowing for uplift. He started his talk with a discussion of ancient marine clays and clam shells that he had been finding in various elevations and distances from the ocean in southeast.
The biota of glacial age is pretty intriguing as well. He started his talk with a discussion of ancient marine clays and clam shells that he had been finding in various elevations and distances from the ocean in southeast. It was a good way to introduce how the areas in southeast varied in affects of rebound and forebulge influence. I'm inspired to look for creek clams on my trips out of Sitka sound. I'm also inspired to look for odd plants down in Sandy and Whale Bays. There really isn't enough botany in the stories at this point in time.
The pieces of the corroborating evidence that story that are interesting are the subspecies of small mammals including Flying Squirrels that occur on Prince of Wales and the mice on Coronation. Again it would be interesting to find the plant stories that could support the story as well. What I have heard so far about the vegetation (in a general way) is that the pine forests were most abundant around 12,000 years ago, then displaced by spruce (10,000 years ago) and eventually western hemlock.
Had breakfast with Jim, Scott and Natalie in the morning, but mostly talked about elk. Heard some horror stories about how the elk are destroying the alpine on Etolin. Not sure why the hunt isn't more extensive nor why it isn't legal to hunt elk any time of the year if they aren't on Etolin or Zarembo islands. I think he avoided tonight's topic because he wanted to make sure that we all attended the talk. He did say that he planned on speaking at the Paths across the Pacific conference this summer. Tom Ager is as well, so it should be a good one.
The rest of the week: walked around the lake Sunday afternoon. The sun had come out and I had graded papers for about as long as I could stand.
Not alot of variety of birds, but it was nice to go outside. Found 29 Barrow's goldeneyes, 12 Common mergansers, 2 Harlequin, 1 Glaucous-winged gull, and 4 Buffleheads by dock.
In the alders around the lake and in the garden several Golden crowned kinglets, 3 Winter wrens, 3 Song sparrows, 5 Juncos, 8 Cchickadees, about 37 crows. The crows were raiding the feeder or at least trying to. They have a hard time with the hanging feeder, but they are tenacious.

Found another downed tree by the cabin. I'm fairly certain that it went down last week. I hope that I can find a few more upturned stumps to document this year.

Monday found it necessary to wear my headlamp this morning on my way to town. Too dark for a morning commute bird count.Tuesday faired better without a headlamp, but went in a bit later. 3 buffleheads by the dock, 4 pelagic cormorants on the commute.
Very whippy ride home Tuesday night. Strong westerly chop in the squalls.

Friday, December 07, 2007

The Wednesday morning commute was a bit on the dark side and the ice was thick between the islands. It was gone between Morne island and Crescent Harbor. No ducks by the Galankin dock, about 8 Common mergansers by the Wades.

Took a walk on Swan Lake in the afternoon. The few ducks (mallards) that we saw were by the outlet which was still liquid. Wish that I had brought my skates to town, I'll have to hope for another opportunity during the next high pressure event. Only a bit of slushy ice on the way home.

Thursday morning after the Mt.Edgecumbe class, Scott Harris, John Hudson and I went looking for dragonfly habitat in the Indian river valley. It was mostly sunny and somewhere between cool and cold when we started. Maybe cold is more personally accurate, I had to keep walking for awhile to keep warm.

We crossed the first bridge and went to the long muskegs on the west side of the second bridge. The vegetation was covered with frost and all of the ponds were frozen, got in a little sliding on the biggest of the ponds. The large pond had some interesting patterns of frozen bubbles and what kind of looked like capillary tubes through the ice. I assume that the bubbles and tubes are from carbon dioxide and methane production.

Where the muskegs steer to the west, decided to go east to see what was on the other side of the bit of scrubby forest. We didn't really find out, we crashed around for awhile through the brush until it seemed that we had found a ravine. At least the terrain was sloping down a bit more than we had time or interest to investigate on a short day. It might be worth a look on a longer day, but it looks like a brushy slog. There wasn't anything at the scale of the topo map.
John thought that we might find several species of dragons in the muskeg, so we'll plan on coming back in May. I forgot to ask if there is any pattern of years spent as larvae and habitat. Longer as larvae in less nutrient rich habitats or shorter?
Turned back and continued through a bit more muskeg and then into the scrubby forest to cross the west fork. I would have liked to see if I could have found the tree on my own from this direction, but Scott took the lead, so I'll have to find out some other time. We had lunch by the hemlock. I'm beginning to think I should leave small pieces of cookies or pie as a sign of respect or acknowledgement. Not sure I could stop eating a chocolate chip cookie in time to leave any behind. Peanut butter and jelly should be just as good?

Went west to find the waterfalls that I managed to miss on my last visit. It seemed a little silly to miss a noisy waterfall, so I wanted to redeem myself. There are alot of steep and noisy creeks coming down the slope, but still. Went west and followed the dry channel to the falls. Now I know what I did wrong last time, walked too far up the valley before turning west to the hillslope. The falls were frozen at the surface, the ice was thick enough to walk on at the foot of the falls. The side slopes and covering bryophytes and ferns were encased in ice. The plants must have great abilities to pump water outside the cell membranes to survive such conditions. I know that they do quite well dessicated, but couldn't find any information about bryophyte survival in ice. Obviously they must be able to withstand it since the falls freeze every winter and there seems to be plenty of bryophyte cover. Just wonder exactly how. I wonder if the abundance/survival of the mosses in the falls is different depending on whether the moss remains in the liquid water of the falls or ends up in the ice layer. I haven't really looked at amount of moss in different water flow in any waterfallI'm guessing that the plants that end up in the ice layer tend to get broken off more often, fragmentation dispersal?

Was finally able to make a decision about the thallose liverwort from the falls. It is/was Preissia quadrata. The hexagonal pattern of the cells, with a complex pore structure and and the stalked receptacles seem to be good field marks. I could see the cross shaped opening in the pore with the dissecting scope and lamp, didn't try to see it with the hand lens and head lamp. It occured to me that a small piece of Conocephalum could look somewhat similar, but it doesn't have the same pore structure. Preissia is supposed to have a peppery taste even when dry, this one wasn't terribly pungent, but did have a bit of a peppery taste to it.

Noticed on my last visit to the falls that the Polystichum at the falls look very different than those in the valley bottom. I'm still trying to convince myself that all the Polystichum that I used to call braunii are now P. setigerum. Looking at FNA, P. braunii is twice pinnate with each pinnule on a short stalk. P. setigerum is pinnate and then divided again, but the pinnules aren't completely seperate and aren't stalked. The Polystichum by the falls are mostly P. setigerum, these look very different from the Polystichum in the valley bottom in the degree of division. Collected a frond from the falls, easily a P. setigerum, but neglected to look closely at the valley holly ferns. Not sure if the ones in the valley are different enough to be braunii or if setigerum is just variable. Next time.

On the way back to town we followed the dry channel of the west fork until the water re-surfaced. The channel has a large amount of woody debris and rock which seems interesting for a dry channel. How often do the flood events occur that deposit so much debris? The depth to bedrock and the amount of rock/debris must keep the water below the surface? The cut banks were of mixed cobbles and sediment, with lines of needle ice along lines of different soil texture? Along the base of the channel were mounds of needle ice. As we moved down the channel we found small puddles of liquid water, then a pool about 6ft by 10ft with an obvious small inflow. The next one down was much more active. I'm assuming that the surface flow relates more to bedrock depth. Soon after we had to abandon the channel for the terrace.

There were small circles of frost and ice crystals around the small holes under trees. It almost looked as if there should be a small animal (troll) in the hole breathing to produce the warm air. Alas, don't need to invoke mythological creatures to come up with a probable explanation. It must be a trap of warmer moist air that equalizes over the winter. Some of the ice crystals formed very delicate and small rectangles (open book shaped) with herringbone pattern.

Tried to show off the Schistostega on the upturned stumps, but found that the plants don't glow in the ice or don't stand out enough to be seen amongst the ice. John was definately not impressed. Did find a brand new upturned tree to monitor near one of the dry channels coming down from the hillslope. At least it looked new, all the needles were present. Got John to take a photo for me, hopefully he won't delete the truely odd photo of the bottom of a small tree root wad.

Felt a few snowflakes late in the day. Saw one Sapsucker on a tree right next to the trail, managed to get out a couple of inarticulate sounds and point so that John and Scott could see it. We were chattering too much to see many other birds, but I could hear chickadees and kinglets in the area.

So , what did I learn about dragonflies? That the eyes on dragons touch in the middle and those of damselflies are seperate on each side (at least in Alaska). Not sure why this escaped me, it was definately a "duh" kind of moment. Learned why ballistic defecation is useful for a dragonfly (stealth for odor, but I would think that the movement of the water would be a bit telling), that we have no dragons adapted for the slower parts of streams (yes, I should read the book I bought) and it wasn't just my ineptness, bluets don't slow down well even with prolonged refrigeration. That sperm packets are produced in the stern of the male dragon fly, but as the penis of the dragon fly is close the thorax, the packets must be moved prior to sex. Serious planning. Lastly, happy not to be a female dragonfly, grabbed by the neck and not released until you agree to sex, doesn't sound all that great. Not to mention the removal of any previously deposited sperm packets...can't be good.

Back to rain, unfortunately froze on the pavement. Slide nicely to a stop before entering traffic. Went to Starrigavan Friday afternoon to look for birds and show John a few more of our trails. No swans, but did find Buffleheads, Barrows Goldeneyes, Mallards, one Hooded merganser, a Pacific loon, Pelagic cormorants, Common Mergansers, kingfishers and herons.



Seriously losing track of the commute birds; Saturday there were 8 Barrows Goldeneyes, 2 Harlegquins, 18 Common Mergansers, 1 Heron, 1 glaucuous-winged gull, 6 Buffleheads, 1 double crested and 4 pelagic cormorants.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

The weather has been sunny and cold, windy Saturday through Monday, but calm on Tuesday.
The pan ice in Crescent harbor on Saturday disappeared as the wind picked up and the temperature dropped. The dry weather Saturday through Monday was pleasant as the window didn't need scraping and the skiff lines were pliable. This morning the frost was back.

The wind felled two trees over the trail on Sunday between going to town around 11:30 and returning around 5pm. Glad I picked up that penny on the street. They fell right over the trail, one is resting at a height just above my knees, the other at my shoulder. One was roughly 8 inches in diameter the other 11 inches. Fortunately there is just enough room to easily climb over one tree and under the other when traveling back and forth to the dock. Both trees were leaning a little from a previous wind storm, but not so much that I was nervous. So much for my tree knowledge. There were several small branches on the trail, none with that fatal sort of look though. I always have been more intimidated by traveling through the forest during a wind storm than traveling by skiff to town. I'm not sure in a wind storm if a person could hear the tree start to fall in time to move out of the way. I have run down the the trail before, thinking that the raindrop rule should apply to trees. During one huge storm with winds in the upper 70s, two trees fell in the garden, pretty close to the house. Whatever sound the tree made falling was completely lost in the wind.

Both Galankin and Swan lake are frozen, Ian told me that the latter was frozen yesterday afternoon. There hasn't been any sea ice because of the wind the last couple of days, but tonight I broke ice most of the way home. Is was fairly thin and slushy in the channel between town and Morne Island, it didn't slow me down, but I could hear it against the hull. Between Morne island and the dock, the ice was thick enough to slow me down involuntarily. Even with a metal boat I'm not too thrilled about going full speed in the dark into the ice. So I slowed down and enjoyed Mars and the stars. I expect to smash ice all the way to town in the morning.

The birds have been scarce on the commute. I was surprised that more haven't been taking shelter in the cove by the island dock. Saturday commute birds: by dock: 7 buffleheads, 4 mallards, 2 common mergansers, 2 Harlequin, 1 glaucous-winged gulls, ca. ten goldeneyes. Sunday and Monday there were few birds visible through my scarf... Tuesday 13 common mergansers by the Wade's dock. This weekend found 3 Song sparrows, j4 uncos, 1 winter wren and 8 chickadees in the shrubs below and at the feeder.

Cleaning out my email found these quotes posted on a recent the plant of the day (?) that I will try to take to heart.
"Botanical latin is essentially a written laguage, but the scientific names of plants oftern occur in speech. How they are pronounced really matters little provided they sound pleasant and are understood by all concerned" Stearn Botanical Latin 4th edition. (Pinus is good example of this idea).

"When someone presumes to correct your pronunciation, a knowing smile is an appropriate response" Jepson's Manual Flora of California

I guess I owe an apology to a few people that I have corrected.