Life on the Outer Coast

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.