The cold weather arrived in force on Sunday. The overnight low on the island was 13F and I believe that the high was 19. The wind was fierce enough that I only ventured out to feed the birds and grab firewood. It was quite pleasant sitting in the sun at the table writing and watching the birds at the feeder. Jeff tried to run some errands in town, but was prevented from doing so by the frozen steering on both skiffs. A little time with a torch on the metal parts seemed to have done the trick because both skiffs were functional Monday morning.

The wind carried on through Monday evening, in fact I had one of the more uncomfortable rides home I remember having. Not because the water was exceptionally rough, it was gnarly, but manageable. It was the addition of the heavy freezing spray that added to the experience. Within about 5 minutes, the front and port side of the house were covered with ice, fortunately I could see out the starboard window well enough to get across without running into any islands or rocks. Happily, the weather was much nicer on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning there were roughly 50 gulls (mew and glaucous winged) near the island dock. Usually that many gulls aren't near the dock unless there are herring in the area. No sign of feeding, so I'm not sure why the congregation.

Spent time each day this week ice skating at Swan Lake. Not the platonic ideal of skating ice, but it has been very nice. Found a yard past the radio station that has a number of feeders in the garden bordering the lake. On Tuesday I saw Pine siskins, juncos, golden-crowned kinglets, a song sparrow and chickadees. Some of the siskins looked alot like redpolls, but it was difficult to see the red patch without my binoculars. Wednesday I took the binoculars skating with me, didn't see any red polls but did notice that several of the juncos were of the slate colored type. I was fortunate to get to learn a bit more about bird behavior when various predators were in the area. The first predator on the scene was a Sharp-shinned hawk. I first noticed that the siskins scattered at the same time as the neighbors dog was walking by. At first I thought it was the dog that alarmed them, but noticed the hawk. I'm assuming that it was the hawk, rather than the quiet dog that alarmed the birds. It was interesting that the juncos didn't noticably react to the hawk. The next predator was a cat. Completely opposite reaction. The ground dwelling juncos immediately flew up and the siskins just carried on with feeding. I didn't notice any change in calls in either case.

Finally saw one of the flocks of Bohemian waxwings this morning. I was walking through the courtyard at Mt. Edgecumbe and heard an odd call. Looked up in time to see several birds flying over the courtyard and the adjacent roof. The waxwings were in a shore pine when I walked around the building, at least they were there long enough for me to get a brief look.

Did the channel count this afternoon: 10 mallards; 4 pelagic cormorants;2 thayers, 1 mew, 48 glaucous-winged gulls; 7 common mergansers; 47 scaup and 2 ravens. No long-tails or goldeneyes. Previous channel counts had the following number of long tails recorded:

2002: 0
2003 :42
2004: 60
2005: 61
2006: 39

2002 didn't record any longtails until the 4th week of class, the other years the longtails were recorded from the first week through at least the 6th week.

The wet snow of Friday and very early Saturday has been frozen by a drastic temperature drop this afternoon and evening. I could hear the drips this morning laying in bed and walked to dance class in wet snow, by the time I walked back the wind was already up and the temperature was dropping. When I went home around 3:30 or so, the temperature was around 27 and there were white caps. The spray froze when it hit the windshield of the boat. Not terribly easy to see. The lines were wet when I tied up in town this morning, so were frozen solid when I was trying to leave. It took several minutes to untie each line. Nothing like repeated wiggling to generate a little heat.

It was a nice 24 hours for birds. Last evening coming home I saw the island western screech owl in a red alder in the commons. It stayed put for several minutes while I looked at it. I hadn't seen it for a few weeks, so it was nice to see that it was still around. I assume that it is the same individual. A Northern flicker was in Litman's yard this morning.
Walking back to Crescent harbor I got several glimpses of what I assume were red polls near the park entrance. Never did get a good look at them. They were too big for siskins, but somewhat similar in coloring.
Decided to visit the Moller park feeder as I hadn't been there for awhile and maybe some interesting songbird followed the flocks to the abundant food. It was a cold walk down from the ball field to the survivors walk. There were abundant juncos, both slate and oregon, siskins, a song & a tree sparrow and a few starlings. The tree sparrow was in the salmonberries by the informal looking parking lot across from the feeder. I hadn't noticed how yellow it's beak was on previous sightings. I'm pretty sure I've seen (or at least recognized) more tree sparrows this year than ever before.
Saturday was a rather busy day in the neighborhood, lots of kids, four wheelers and cars, the birds were still rather thick and kept flying toward me when ever a vehicle or kid happened by. I guess that I was the lesser of two evils. I stayed as long as I was warm, kind of hoping for a hawk so I could look at the eyes... fortunately for the songbirds, I didn't get my rather heartless wish.
Did a few errands then continued on my slacker pursuit of birds. Decided it was today or maybe never to visit the Anna's hummingbird. Very glad that I did. Sat with Pam and Mike in the living room and watched the feeder for about an hour. The male Anna's showed up pretty fast after I arrived. It was considerably larger than the rufous hummers that I have in my garden during the summer. Now I'm sure that I haven't seen an Anna's on Galankin. Both the size and the markings are distinct enough that even on a quick glance it would have been obviously different. It visited the feeder several times, but mostly it sat on a hemlock branch across from the window. It was rather interesting to watch it turn its head back and forth rather incessantly. I don't think I've seen this behavior before. We assumed that it was watching for predators. The violet of the throat would flash on each back and forth. It was mesmerizing watching this tiny creature flashing against the background of the hemlock branches. Kind of amazing that it has been keeeping warm enough, even though it is getting plenty of food to generate its own heat. Can't imagine that it hasn't found some warm place to spend the night. I hope that it has one tonight.
I stood up to leave as I didn't want to wear out my welcome and the hummingbird had abandoned its branch. Decided to see if the bird was on the elderberry below the deck, it was there, and it was chasing another male Anna's away. They chased down toward Sawmill creek. Maybe it was watching/guarding its territory instead of lookiing for predators? Pam and Mike had no idea that there were two birds around, maybe there are more? Given that they said that there are often up to 50 humminbirds around the house in the summer, certainly there could be a few that aren't wired to migrate.
Given that it is 17 F tonight, I hope the birds have warm haven. We joked about putting out a heat light for the bird, might have been a good idea.

Finished another 15 descriptions.

Thursday was a classic winter day for sun basking. Cool, but not too cold, and a light wind from what seemed like a northern direction. it was the kind of day that I might look for very early crocuses in sunny places near buildings. A little early, but still possible. The New Dawn Viburnum is blooming again, so why not a confused crocus? Did get a brief bit of basking in on a nice rock on Alice island.
Spent the morning at home making smoothies and soup for Ian, whose face remained very swollen, then went to town in the afternoon.
There was a report of a Yellow eyebrowed thrush in a garden on Davidoff st. this week. Decided that I wasn't going to prowl around someone's yard, but decided that if I was a lost Aleutian/Asiatic bird, maybe I'd like the open spaces, alders and ash trees of Alice island. It was also a more convenient site to where I needed to be. I didn't expect to have any luck in quest for odd thrushes, and I didn't, but I did come across a Sharp-shinned hawk perched on top of a small spruce tree between the boat launch and the road near the sewage treatment plant. We looked at eachother for several minutes, then it flew off toward Millerville. I still have some trouble deciding whether I'm looking at a Sharp shinned hawk or a Merlin when the bird is perched. Once the bird flies, it seems clear. If it flaps and glides, I call it a Sharp-shin if it doesn't glide its a Merlin. The differences in the wing shape are easy to see in the bird book, but not always so easy for me when I'm looking at the tail end of a bird flying away.
From looking at Sibley, it seems that I need to start remembering to look for a clear distinction between the color of the throat and the head (seems like it is more distinct in a Merlin) and the cheeks (lighter in a Sharp shin).

14 Common mergansers, 2 Barrows goldeneyes and 2 pelagic cormorants near the Galankin dock. 3 Common murres, 2 pelagic cormorants, 2 mew gulls and a long tail on the way across. Heard what seemed like a Northern flicker in the alders on the way to the dock.

Some ice on my way home after dance class.

I received an interesting slide of prepared peat material from the Jarvis St. muskeg core. The slide was made from the 8,000 year old part of the core. Tom sent this slide because of the abundance of fungal hyphae and in particular because of the bumpy or papillose hyphae that he found in this core. He said that he associates an abundance of fungi in a given layer with dryer conditions that would favor decompostion. I see alot of hyphae in the rhizosphere zone, but perhaps that abundance doesn't continue in the deeper layers. I haven't really looked at the peat below the root system, so don't have much of an opinion. Unfortunately, the camera set-up on the microscope hasn't been cooperating lately, so this is the best I can do for now. Hopefully, I can improve on the situation. The bumpy hyphae in the prepared peat cores matches some of the hyphae that I've found in my rhizosphere work. The bumps or papillae seem to a permanent part of the cell wall exterior given that they survive both boiling in KOH and the horrors of peat samples for pollen observations. I haven't been able to identify the type of hyphae yet, tried sending out an inquiry to a couple of people, but haven't had a definitive answer yet. I found some hyphae with clamp connections in the slide, so there are definitely Basidiomycetes and other structures such as sclerotia that look very much like what I'm seeing in the current muskeg material.

Also in the sample is alot of pollen. Still hoping to get some photos and learn abit on how to identify the pollen.

I've changed my thoughts about muskeg plants and their root systems since I started digging around this fall. One thing that I've heard and probably repeated about muskeg plants is that their leaves seem to be adapted for dry conditions (xeromorphy). They are often tough, with cuticles and narrow shaped with enrolled margins. It seems that a more accurate way to think about the leaves is that they are adapted for long life rather than to reduce moisture loss. Narrow evergreen leaves have less nitrogen and lower photosynthetic rates than broad deciduous ones. The lower nitrogen availability in muskegs would seem to favor plants with evergreen leaves. Muskeg plants also have reasonably well developed root systems with root hairs. Not of course as abundant as your average grass in the prairie, but much more well developed than I had thought. Given the amount of water in the muskeg during the active part of the growing season, it seems that adequate water is available. Given how water moves into the vascular system, it seems that water isn't a problem. Does it really matter that the rhizosphere might be mostly frozen in the winter when they aren't actively growing?

In addition to asking about the bumpy hyphae, I asked about a small basidiomycete collected from a cedar last year that was allegedly sent on to UAF for identification. Found out that it never made the trip and since I couldn't relocate the small piece that I had saved, went out and collected another.

The fungus grows on cedar, where I've seen it the bark was gone. I'm not certain if this fungus is limited to cedar or if I just haven't noticed it on other species. This one was growing on a cedar above the canyon beyond the waterfall on the route between Herring cove and Beaver lake. The fungus colonies look like scattered black dots on the tree trunk. It was on the adjacent trees as well, but the largest colony was on the tree from which I collected the fungus. It is in the mail.

Ian had 4 wisdom teeth removed on Sunday, so I've been home most mornings this week, only running to town for groceries or to take a dance class. He is still very swollen up, maybe 2 at a time might have been better. Although maybe a sensible person wouldn't go back for more torture.

Tuesday saw a group of about 25 Pacific loons between Breast island and the Lighthouse. One pair of Marbled murrelets and several pelagic cormorants.

Since the Natural history class was cancelled, I decided to do the channel bird count on my own. Yesterday there were 67 scaups, 26 longtails, 12 common mergansers, 3 Red-breasted mergansers, 3 pelagic cormorants, 2 crows and 1 raven. There were considerably more longtails out of the count area toward ANB harbor. There were 2 song sparrows between the bridge and the Coast guard dock.

I've finished 120 plant descriptions, well below where I wanted to be, but at least I'm making some progress.

I spent most of the week getting ready for the new semester and writing plant descriptions. When I stop to actually write down what I did, there was a bit more variability in activity.

Wednesday desperately felt the need to stretch my legs and walked up to the second bridge around noonish. It was a nice break before settling down at my desk. I needed a dose of walking with a background of forest, not so much for the exercise, but for the quiet time. Found a brown creeper on one of my stops to look around and listen. Decided that I still like just stopping periodically to see what is flying or growing. This habit would drive some of my friends crazy, but it works when I'm by myself. Found it difficult to stop at the second bridge, felt like finding the lower muskeg, but didn't have my boots on and needed to act like a responsible teacher. On the way back down, found a dipper (maybe the same one?) I found earlier in the fall. At any rate it was in the same area of the river, not singing, but bobbing and swimming. Once it seemed like it had an invertebrate in its bill, but I couldn't quite be sure.
Still haven't found the time to collect more muskeg soil for the mycorrhizae search. I still have plenty of cultures to maintain and more roots to look at, so I can wait for the right time. I did subculture the most abundant the fungi isolated from Kalmia on Friday. I'm hoping that the cultures grow fast enough that I can innoculate a few plants in early February. The wheat that I innoculated with a culture from Cornus suecica seem to be doing well. I'm crossing my fingers that I've successfully captured the most common endosymbiont.

I went back to the cemetary twice looking for more lichens. The first time to collect a slightly bigger piece of the potential Nephroma isidiosum. I found several more interesting lichens on that visit. I did find a larger piece of the same isidiate lichen, Peltigera collina, Nephroma resupinatum and Sticta fuliginosa. Not sure why I hadn't found this many Nephroma spp. previously. I checked through my field books and found a few collections of Nephroma arcticum and one of N. helveticum from Chichagof island, but none of the species I've found in the cemetary. The third trip this week was very brief, just long enough to verify the host trees and look for a bigger sample of the Sticta. No luck on that mission, in the time available. I sent the collections to Linda Geiser (F.S. Air quality lichen lab) in Corvallis for verification. Fortunately she had the time to look at them and had good memories of working with me on the Stikine a life time ago. My clearest memory of working with her is showing her how to load and safely carry a rifle, after I found out that the Stikene area was sending people to the woods with big guns and bullets, but no training. I've always been a little nervous about loaded guns.

One of the interesting bits of information I heard at the monthly Fine Arts camp board meeting was that Pam Kernin has had a pair of hummingbirds visiting her feeder continuously since the summer. One of the birds (a rufous ?)disappeared during the cold weather this fall, but the probable Anna's is still around. Hopefully, I can visit soon and see the bird. I was hoping that she had a digital photo of the bird, but no joy, another video.
The weather has been on the wild side this week. Saturday night the wind blew from the south-southwest for several hours, the peak was 57mph. No trees down, but there were alot of small Sitka alder branches down by the lake this afternoon. Did see a varied thrush in the commons. One surf, one black scoter, 3 mergansers, two mew gulls and 4 pelagic cormorants on the way to town.
Went in to town in the afternoon and managed to get myself stuck because of the extreme weather. I couldn't tell how windy it was from Harris island. There weren't any visible white caps or maybe I was too busy talking to look out the window. Once I got to Crescent harbor, it was quite apparent that the weather was extreme. The wind was out of the southeast, there was green water between the whitecaps, but it didn't seem like much green water. I decided to try to go home, but didn't get too far. The waves seemed to be about 5 ft inside the mouth of the harbor and they were stacked up in a nasty sort of way. The wind was screaming (I found out it was around 66mph). I only remember getting the the harbor mouth and turning around once in my commuting years. I must be a bit smarter most times. It was actually rather gnarly turning around in the harbor.
After about 3 hours, the wind had shifted to the west and diminished to a less intimidating level. The waves were steep and white capping from the west with a nice underlying swell. I had to slow down and turn enough that I wasn't in the trough all the way home. I turned the spot light off once I determined the wave direction, because seeing them was distracting and not at all helpful. It was also snowing.
Two red alders were down in the commons, and a few hemlock branches, no trees that I could see.
Nice to be out of the weather and home. I wasn't looking forward to scrounging a bed in town.

Walked around the Baranof St. cemetary after dance class looking for Bohemian waxwings that were reported Monday. Always feel a little silly chasing yesterday's birds, but I like to assume that I will at least see something that I wouldn't have seen regardless of the success of the search.
This time I didn't see the waxwings or any birds other than ravens and eagles. It was quiet back there except for the wind.
What I did find was some great habitat for epiphytic lichens. The cemetary has crab apple, european mountain ash, red alder, sitka spruce, western hemlock and probably some other trees that I've overlooked.
I haven't done much of a survey yet and based on what I found today, I probably should. One lichen that I found looks like Nephroma bellum. It is a medium sized brown foliose lichen with apothecia on the underside of lobe tips. The lower surface is light brown or tan and smooth, the upper surface darker and smooth. The photobiont is a blue green bacteria.

The second lichen I found is most likely a Nephroma isidiosum. It is also dark brown on the upper surface and has a lighter colored tometum on the lower surface. Some of the "hairs" are bottle-brush like. The upper surface has tallish black isidia on the lamina and on the margins of the lichen. The photobiont is a blue-green bacteria. The tomentum really threw me off, I decided that it was a Peltigera, but couldn't find a species in that genus that fit very well. What eventually got me back to the (hopefully) right track was the presence of a lower cortex. This was only clearly present in cross section. This species has only been reported from the Yakutat forelands and mainland river valleys. Lovely.

Did see a robin on the island Monday morning.

Ended up spending more time indoors than I had wanted this week. Deirdre was apparently incubating a lovely cold when she arrived home and was coughing horribly most of the last week. Glad we went to Kruzof right after Christmas when she was relatively healthy.

Friday was sunny and I thought she and I could try a couple of short forays into the outdoors. Was inspired by a great morning view of a very narrow crescent moon over peak 2975 and what I'm pretty sure was Venus over Eureka Mtn to the southeast. There is something especially pleasant about looking at the sky from a pile of pillows. Maybe it is just nice indulging my inner slacker.
There was a heavy frost on the ground which didn't disappear despite our impressively late start. We managed to leave the house around noon. Went out to Starrigavan, the eternal optimist in me always hopes for swans, but is seldom rewarded. We didn't see anything too exotic, but we didn't give it much of a look either, the cold out there was aggravating Deirdre's cough and I was feeling rather wimpy myself.

Next stop was Moller park, the sun was nicer. Deirdre was impressed by the number of Pine siskins and juncos at the feeder. Also saw a Tree and several Song sparrows at the feederand a Northern Flicker in a red alder in the survivors walk. She had enough energy for one last short loop walk on the Indian river trail to the Cross trail and back to the road. Nice to get outside even if for just short forays.

Deirdre left for Boston on Saturday, arrived there on Sunday and leaves again on Monday for Yucca mountain and Death valley via Las Vegas. Too bad the school doesn't realize that it needs a botanist on geology trips.

The feeder tree was at long last visited by a Golden crowned kinglet and a Brown creeper on Saturday, it is nice to be able to turn in something other than juncos and chickadees on the feeder watch report. Looked for the owl the last few nights, but didn't see it. The last sighting was Thursday evening.

Sunday noonish, Jeff and I took a short paddle to the runway area and Mermaid cove. There was a big swell, but very small chop (less than 1ft), only out between Rose and Mitchell Rocks did the water feel a bit intimidating. It was gnarly enough that I didn't want to go further around the airport. The sea conditions weren't that favorable for seeing birds. The skin on frame kayak is a joy to paddle or maybe its the wonderfully light paddle. I was using the mixed cedar paddle that Brian made. The kayak seems to skate over the water compared to the plastic one, I don't usually find myself in the lead in any kayak trip. It still feels very odd to feel the waves underneath the boat. The only thing that was a pain was trying to put the small spray skirt on with the layers of winter clothes I had on to keep warm. I was wondering if maybe I shouldn't have bought a small. Fortunately, once it is on, it fits just fine even over two windblock coats, but it was a bit of a comedy getting into the thing.

From the dock to the lighthouse saw a group of 8 Pacific loons, about 20 Barrow's Goldeneyes, 2 Buffleheads, several Common mergansers, 6 mallards, 2 Surf scoters and one Horned grebe. Paddled around behind Galankin to the Ferebee Rocks, 2 Glaucous winged gulls and about 50 Cormorants, mostly Double crested and 4 Harelquins. The cormorants were all on the rocks until I got too close, which is not very close. Continued on around the west side of the Beardslee islands toward the runway in search of alcids. Only one marbled murrelet and a couple of Mew gulls. Mermaid cove was pretty quiet as was the runway. More cormorants, 2 Harlequins and a Common loon. I almost talked myself into seeing a perched owl, but I'm fairly certain it was just a weird piece of wood. Paddling southeast from the cove was a bit of a steady work out. I was fairly convinced that if I stopped paddling, I'd end up on the runway. There was a mixed group of Surfbirds and Black Turnstones on the northeast shore of the southern most Beardslee Island. What was so nice about being in the kayak was that I heard the birds before I saw them. The birds weren't too worried about the kayk, I got close enough to have an excellent view without binoculars.

I've been trying to catch up with the bryophytes I collected last summer. The material I collected from a seep at 3200ft, collected in this case is a nice way of saying stuffed a clump of mixed bryophytes in a paper bag. There was alot of Lepidozia reptans, Diplophyllum albicans, a former Racomitrium which is most likely a Codriophorus, and a new liverwort for me, Gymnomitrion concinnatum. The drawing of Gymnomitrion in Schofield's guide doesn't really do it justice. It is a very small (about 10mm long), rope-like green liverwort. The stems are covered by the imbricate leaves. Each leaf was green at the base and hyaline from about mid way to the tip. The leaves are very shallowly lobed, the lobes have pointed apices. It was tangled in the lower stems of the Lepidozia and Codriophorus and I wouldn't have seen it except that I was being particularly anal about looking at the Lepidozia. The Liverwort Flora of the British Isles by Jean Paton was the only source of ecological information that I had access to at the moment. She has a rather thorough disscussion which I'll inadequately summarize: this liverwort is common on dry or wet areas of late "snow-lie" on mountain summits and slopes in Scotland and Northern Wales. Other than being on the wrong side of the Atlantic, it sounds like where I found it.

I've not spent much time outside the last few days as I've been attempting to be diligent about writing plant descriptions and admittedly being an incredible slug. I've had to postpone the hike to the Indian river falls until Deirdre is over her cold.
Did get lucky and scar up a western screech owl Saturday evening about 5:30. I was trudging noisily homeward head down through the alders in the common area when I saw the owl flying away from me. I was a bit irritated with myself for not paying attention, since it had obviously been in an alder right along the trail. Got lucky again as it landed in another alder not too far away and I got a good long look at the bird before it flew off again. Haven't seen it since then, but can't say that I've been outside after dark either.

Sunday it snowed from around 8:30 until approximately 2pm. Ended up with about 2 to 3 inches of snow on the island. After it stopped,Deirdre and I walked around the island. Relatively quiet for birds. Did see a Varied thrush in the alders and a Red-necked grebe by the dock.

Besides writing did look at the bryophytes I collected from the Yellow cedars on Kruzof. The Plagiochila seems to be P. satoi, although I'd like to see drawings of the leaf margins of the different taxa to be sure. P. satoi, P. schofieldiana, and P. semidecurrens all occur on Chamaecyparis, so I'll have to look at the marginal teeth on every one I collect.
The Herbertus is H. aduncus var. aduncus. Fortunately the treatment for this genus is available on the eBFNA. The four species listed in Schofields liverwort guide have been consolidated to 3 species. H. sakuraii has been incorporated into H. dicranus. I'm not sure what happened to H. haidensis.

The clumped mosses from cedar were all Tortella tortuosa, I thought that there might have been a second species in the collection, but it was just a smaller plant.
Haven't gotten to the mosses from the basalt cliff yet.
Did identify one of the smaller polypores collected as Trichaptum abietinus. The larger rusty orange one, I'm not terribly satisfied with yet. It turns black with KOH, which made me think it was a Phaeolus, but now I'm not too confident. I'd like to find one that is a bit fresher to work with. The ones I have seem a bit far towards the rotten side.
Have 31 descriptions written.