Life on the Outer Coast

I haven't done well recording my observations the last couple of weeks. Hopefully, I'll recall most of the highlights.
The end of spring break, just before Easter the red polls were abundant around town, I saw several large flocks up Indian River trail and in the commons on Galankin island. In both places the birds were both in the alders and on the ground near the alders. More than once, I stood or sat still and had the flock fly past and around me. It seemed that the birds kept coming back and around, but I'm assuming that the flock was large enough that it took a few minutes for them to pass.
The Pine siskins have been rather thick as well. For the first time this feeding season, siskins came to the feeder. There were also several in the garden on the east side of the house.

It snowed on Easter and several inches on the following Tuesday. Heard my the first Varied thrush on the 24th, they have been vocal ever since. The Song sparrows, Juncos and Winter wrens have also been singing/calling.
The first opening of the herring fishery was on Tuesday (3/25) near Big Gavanski Island. The second was on the eastern shore of Kruzof Island on 3/26. They fished in shallow water right off the shore and caught a tremendous amount of fish. The Infinite Glory caught 3 million pounds in one set which took 4 days to pump to the tenders. The last opening was on Monday the 31st.
I haven't seen any spawn around the south end of town. There have been a few pods of sea lions in the islands, but not much of a congregation.
Mary Willson came over from Juneau on Thursday to give a lecture. We walked up to the first bridge on the Indian River trail, I was hoping to show her the dippers that I've been watching this winter. It was a beautiful sunny day with about 6 inches of snow along the trail. The dippers behaved like I would expect, and weren't to be found on the way up. We did see one from the bridge. The bird was singing and in fact we heard it before we saw it. It was eating insects (?) from the snow on the small gravel bar in the river. It didn't venture much into the water, mostly staying on the snow on the gravel and from the top of a boulder on the bar.
Mary suggested looking on large rootwads or large boulders in or near the river for nests. She said that they sometimes build nests on the top of debris if there isn't suitably steep rock banks.

Found one bright yellow Skunk cabbage flower in a small snow free spot. The top was nipped off, but it was still bright yellow, not bruised looking.
Heard a Steller's jay on the way down near the boundary cut. Didn't see it, but it was rather distinct. Don't belive that I've seen or heard one this winter. I know that they are around, but I don't seem to hang out where they do and none have ventured to Galankin island.

Mary gave an overview of her studies on bird dispersal of fruit/seeds. She worked with red/orange salmonberries and red/yellow elderberries. The take home message for me was that birds are rather fickle and don't clearly prefer a certain color at least not in salmonberries or elderberries. They often prefer red fruit, but will choose orange/yellow fruit if it is easier to obtain. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that bird preference is much of a selection agent for fruit characteristics, at least not for salmonberries or elderberries. The birds are just too variable in their taste. There are more red salmonberries than orange in Southeast, which could account for the preference. However, in Oregon orange salmonberries are more abundant than red ones and the birds still prefer the red ones (at least in aviary experiments).

What was interesting to me was the 25% lipid content of elderberries and red osier dogwood berries. I'm curious to watch how quickly elderberries disappear when they are ripe. Those calories would seem to be quite attractive.
It seems that bears may disperse alot more blueberries than do birds. From what I remember the berries don't spend much time in the digestive track, just moving through in a rather rapid time. Germination was rapid, but there was alot of crowding of seedlings, so survival wasn't great. Not very surprising given the density of seedlings in a pile of bear scat. Seems like going through a smaller digestive tract might be a better deal for a seed. At least in terms of seed density.
I do wonder if the birds prefer red over blue berries. Most of the thrushes in the garden seem to be eating red huckleberries instead of blueberries.
Went to Juneau on Friday on the Fairweather. Beautiful sunny, flat calm day. Lots of scaups, mallards, goldeneyes, common mergansers, cormorants, scoters, 2 Canada geese and a couple of Humpback whales along the way.
Didn't get out much in Juneau, but did notice the willow catkins were out, didn't see any stamens or pistils, but they must be on the way. Briefly visited Mendenhall glacier (the lake was solid with lots of people skiing, walking on it) and the new NOAA lab out at Lena Pt. The labs were impressive, as were the magpies.
The ferry ride back was just as pleasant, but with low clouds instead of sun. Drove through the herring fleet on the way to the terminal. They weren't fishing, just wandering in search of fish. Large group of Common murres and several groups of sea lions were with the boats.

Today found several almost open salmonberry flowers by the Galankin island dock. Not quite open, but very pink.