Life on the Outer Coast

2012-01-19T08:52:00.004-09:00

Not exactly breaking news, but it has been cold this week, extremely cold for Sitka. The temperatures started working their way down last Friday, sunny with a temperature range a fairly wintery 24-29). Saturday and Sunday saw a slow downward trend (19-30) and (14-24), with pretty mild winds and sunny skies. Monday and Tuesday were even colder with lows of 8 and 6 respectively. So far, the house seems to have survived the cold spell, the skirting on the east side of the house and having Deirdre at home tending the fire probably makes a huge difference in these conditions. The skiff has not been so happy; the telltale isn't showing water even after a long warm up and slow idle across the bay, fortunately it does not go into automatic slow down due to overheating, but does sound an awful alarm. I tend to associate pretty intense winds with these clear, cold periods, but this time we have been relatively fortunate. Sunday’s weather map showed a fairly minimal difference between the high over the Yukon and the low to our west, todays shows a slightly deeper low. Seems like the winds could be on the increase.

I was curious about previous episodes of single digit weather; apparently I've been in Sitka for at least two pretty cold events; one November 25th and 26th 1985 (lows of 3 and 2) and the other January 30,31 and February 1 1989 (lows of 4,4, and 8).
During the 1985 event, Jim, Dave, Paula and I were on a long Thanksgiving break hunting trip on the Romance. The boat log/journal speaks to the feast (wild Canada goose, pies, sweet potatoes), a sapsucker, deer and sunny, windy cold weather. I didn’t write anything about especially cold weather. By this time we had a small wood stove in the wheel house in addition to the oil stove in the galley, so it was a bit easier to keep the boat toasty in the evenings, but the heat didn’t hold at all once the fire went out. I remember being cold. The overall lack of notes about the extreme cold could be due to cold (19) weather during a hunting trip 2 weeks before. I wrote "clear and cold! NE winds at 50 knots, with higher gusts". I think that an adventure wading into the water up to my thighs at Brent's beach to retrieve a drifting inflatable might have colored my view of the temperatures. The other big difference in my perception might have been the amount of time I spent outside in those years; pretty much every other weekend was a hunting trip during the season, so I probably was a lot more acclimated to the cold than I am these days.
My main recollection of the 1989 event was lack of water. I was very new at water management in those days and a house with four adults (my parents, sister and I) and a baby went through the water supply at a pretty good rate. We were on a catchment system only at the time, so if it was dry, it didn’t take too long before things were marginal. If I remember right we were melting snow in buckets to flush the toilet and had to switch to disposable diapers until we could get more water. Happily, this year we have a half a tank (1200 gallons) of water and only two of us to use it.

Mostly Pine siskins at the feeder during the cold; they seem to be camped out by the feeder. The chickadees and juncos are feeding below the feeder under the tangle of wild apple and salmonberry. I suspect that the energy expended tussling with the siskins for feeder space is not worth the energy cost given that there is plenty of seeds on the ground below.

Deirdre found a dead murre (presumably a Common Murre) on the trail on Monday. Its head and a goodly portion of its breast and belly were missing. When I saw it on Tuesday, one wing was in a nearby shrubby hemlock, but the bulk of the corpse was still on the trail. I’m assuming an eagle killed it and subsequently dropped it on the trail. Not sure if an eagle or raven did the later damage. I’ll probably leave it on the trail to see how long it takes the scavengers to clean it up.

P.S. This morning the murre was gone, it seems that either a bird or a mink found the murre overnight. The wing was still in the tree

2012-01-02T23:11:00.004-09:00

This years Sitka Christmas bird count fell on New Year's day which turned out to be a bit unfortunate for a couple of reasons; first it put a bit of a damper on the late night revels and the weather was on the hideous side.
I had planned on counting on Galankin Island and doing as much counting on the water as possible. Last year's trip around the south sound was pretty productive and I was looking forward to seeing lots of birds (and getting really cold) out on the water. Alas it was not to be; the forecast was for a gale with gusts to 40-60 knots with rain and snow turning to all rain. A double alas that the wind actually came to pass, but we were a bit fortunate in the rain (not too bad).
The wind could have been worse, as it was I didn't feel too stupid wandering around in the forest; the reported high gust was 43mph (weather underground) with steady winds between 22 and 29mph. I'm happy to say that there were no trees or large branches down.
I spent the day doing slow laps around Galankin island with one brief foray to the fuel dock to pick up Deirdre who had stayed in town. The trip to town was a bit intense, fairly bouncy around Breast Island and going with it wasn't too bad, but coming back out from the bridge was a bit worse, so ducked behind aleutski and Turning islands to avoid bucking directly into the rather steep and sharp seas. I did get a Rhinoceros auklet, 2 murrelets, surf scoters and longtails on the short trip.
All in all it wasn't a bad day in terms of species seen; 29 (couldn't bring myself to count the kinglets which I heard, what if it was a creeper?) which seems to be pretty similar to most years (last year was 37). Highlights for this year for me was finally finding a Varied Thrush on the island after months of not seeing any on the island, Red polls and seeing the Western Screech owl in the evening. I was also grateful that Pine siskins had found the deck feeder on Saturday.

Pacific Loon
Common Loon
Horned Grebe
Double crested cormorant
Pelagic cormorant
Great Blue heron
Mallard
Harlequin Duck
Surf Scoter
Long-tailed duck
Barrow’s Goldeneye
Common Merganser
Bald Eagle
Mew Gull
Thayer’s gull
Glaucous-winged gull
Marbled murrelet
Rhinoceros auklet
Belted Kingfisher
Common Raven
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Pacific Wren
Varied Thrush
Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Common Redpoll
Pine Siskin
Western screech owl

One thing that struck me this year was that I almost always see everything I'm going to see on the island by 1pm, yet I am still compelled to go out until dark. At least this year, going out after dark was pretty productive.

2011-12-04T10:42:00.006-09:00

Fall happenings on the trail

On the morning walk to the dock I've found two headless Varied thrushes on the trail in the last month. One was pretty close to the Litman's house, the other on the trail between the path to the lake and the creek outlet. The first disappeared during the day, the second remained undisturbed for two days then was covered by snow for a week or so. It was still on the trail after the snow melted (a week or so) until one of the neighborhood dogs found it.

I was fairly convinced that the hunter was a raptor of some sort, since the only thing initially missing was the head. In my experience with local owls, they don't leave much behind besides a small pile of feathers, so I thought it might have been a Sharp-shinned hawk or something similar. Given that the first bird disappeared the first day, I guess it could have been an owl that was interrupted by traffic (the neighbors take their dogs for a walk pretty early) and returned later after we had passed. The area has a mix of Sitka and Red alder with a pretty open feel to it. I've seen several owls in this habitat over the years and last night walking home saw one perched in a branch over hanging the trail where I've seen one before, so maybe this is the thrush eater.
The second bird, I'm not so sure about what killed it. I haven't seen owls in that area, which doesn't mean that they aren't using that habitat. There are bigger conifers and relatively dense understory of blueberry and Rusty Menziesia, so it might just be more difficult to spot them. I certainly could have been an owl that wasn't so comfortable with the narrow trail or a raptor winging through.
Not too far from the second kill site after a particularly heavy wet snow, a hemlock (roughly 10-12ft tall) perched on a nurse log was pulled off its log, presumably by its heavy ice covered branches and the decayed state of the log. The tree is still alive, so it might form a new leader and carry one, but not so sure how long folks will be willing to walk around it.

2011-10-13T20:53:00.003-08:00

A new Suillus (for me)

Received a mushroom identification request this week for a fungus growing on the ground under a "spruce" by Harrigan Centennial Hall. The fungus in the photo I was sent was pretty clearly a Suilllus because it had a veil that was cream colored, lacked glandular dots on the stem and wasn't associated with Larch. The character that jumped out the most from the photo was the brown bruising of the pores, definitely not something I had seen around here.

I tried to run through the key to Suilllus on the Pacific Northwest Key Council site, but the photo lacked information about several key features used in the key (viscidness was the first).

Once I had it in hand the following were the characters that I used to help me identify ( or misidentify) it:
Cinnamon brown cap with very fine fibrous sort of look, it was not viscid, but had a few needles stuck to the cap
Cap turning dark with KOH
Pores yellow, bruising red brown
Veil didn't form a distinctive ring, more of a zone on the stem, there were a few fragments on the cap rim
Stem solid, slowly and indistinctly turning blue-green
Associated with Douglas Fir

I used Mushroom Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest (handy synoptic key) as my texts were at home and I was anxious to try the program out again. It pretty quickly took me to Suillus lakei (Yeah, a name!), reading the description, it seemed to fit pretty well and there was enough variation in the photos available on Mushroom expert that I decided that it was a positive identification.
I looked at a few similar species (in my mind) e. g. Suillus caerulescens and dismissed it because of the lack of a distinctive color reaction in the stem of the fungus in question.
I started feeling a bit less certain when I looked at the descriptions and photos in Mushrooms Demystified (Arora) and Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest (Trudell and Ammirati). For one the lakei were all pretty red and/or fibrillose looking and what reinforced the sense of disquiet was the lack of discussion in the descriptions of species that I thought were similar. Why didn't neither book's discussion of lakei talk about how to distinguish it from caerulescens? What was I missing?

It seems like I was perhaps not paying enough attention to the overall color the cap of lakei (reddish) vs cinnamon brown (caerulescens) that is distinctive enough to rarely cause confusion and the more extensive fibrils found on lakei .

This is a brief synopsis of the small group of Suillus species included in Arora and Boletes in the PNW) that have ring zones, yellow pores that stain brown that are found with Douglas Fir.

S. ponderosa: has a viscid, bright yellow veil and a smooth cap

S. lakei: fibrillose with reddish brown to brick red or pinkish fibrils (occasionally tawny). Viscid when wet, stalk weakly turning blue or green when cut

S. caerulescens: dry, whitish veil, cap smooth or fibrillose, viscid when wet, stalk turning blue or green when cut, sometimes slowly.

I found myself leaning back toward S. caerulescens at this point, the lack of fibrils is starting to seem like a problem. Still a bit uncomfortable with the identification, I turned to another book (A. H. Smiths and H. Thiers monograph on North American Suillus) and was relieved to finally see the difference between these two species addressed.

" It (caerulescens) differs from S. lakei in having a distinct change to blue in the stipe and in having numberous large latifciferous ducts in the context of the cap. ..."

Well, now I have to make a judgment call; are the fibrils more important than the blue reaction? I did pick another sample today and cut it open fairly quickly after picking. It did turn blue, not abundantly, but more so than previously. No real joy yet.
Guess I'll have to look for lactciferous ducts next.

2011-09-05T09:48:00.008-08:00

DYCs!

Because there aren’t really that many native yellow composites in SEAK, I don’t often have to use DYC too often anymore. Then one day, I decided it was time to get better acquainted with the weedy species around town.

The two plants that caught my attention were growing in the gravel at the edge of the road to the work float near the island side of the O’Connell Bridge. The yellow ray flowers, milky juice and clasping leaf bases made the genus identification fairly straight forward for both plants; Sonchus or Sow thistle. I wasn’t so sure about the species identification of either plant.

At this point, I should confess that I tend to use keys to identify plants, then look at the descriptions and photos/drawings, so the following paragraphs mostly talk about comparing the keys in various books.

I first consulted Invasive Plants of Alaska which includes a description of perennial sow thistle (S. arvensis ssp. uliginosus) and a paragraph about differentiating one species of annual Sonchus (oleraceus) from the perennial one. This text focused on the long horizontal root systems found in the perennials. There was a photo of the leaf base of the perennial (rounded) and the annual (had longish pointy auricles).

Neither plant had a well developed root system, but they might not if they were first year plants. So I looked for additional references.

To sum up this book focused on the root system and auricle shape. S. arvenis has a large root system and rounded auricles.

The key in Hitchcock and Cronquist also referred to differences in the root systems, but added size of flower heads; perennial are 3-5cm and annuals species 1.5-2.5 cm. Lastly, H & C included gland tipped hairs as a characteristic of S. arvensis (this character turned out to be a bit of a red herring). One of the plants had this character, so despite the flowers being a bit on the small size, I was pretty certain that one of the species was arvensis.

To sum up H& C use root system, flower head size with a mention of glandular hairs.

Because the line drawings didn’t really fit what I had in hand, I decided to consult another reference. FNA treatment

This key begins with leaf base auricle shape, number of ribs on the cypsela (fruits) and introduces the idea that one of the species treated as an annual in the last two references, could be a biennial.

Second decision in this key involved life history as well as stem hardness (…”stem bases soft to hard, herbaceous, often hollow” vs. “stem bases hard, sometimes more or less woody”. I think I’ll emphasize the woodiness issue.

Once a direction is chosen, the leaf blade shape is important in differentiating S. oleraceus from S. ternerrimus (leaf blades more or less deltate to lanceolate with the terminal lobe larger vs rhombic to lanceolate and equal sized.

Between arvensis and palustris; geography helps (Ontario vs. widespread) and the leaf base. S. arvensis is rounded and palustris acute auricles

To sum up the FNA (widespread spp only, this removes ternerrimus and palustris from consideration)

S. asper has recurved auricles and fruit with 3 ribs on each face annual or biennial

S. oleraceous: has straight auricles, and lobed leaves with a larger terminal segment and often hollow stems.

S. arvensis: straight auricles, hard stem base, rounded auricles and dark brown cypsela at maturity.

Although I already had a bit more information than I wanted, I decided to consult another favorite reference; Anderson’s Flora of Alaska

Although there was common ground between this and other treatments, another new character came into play; involucres bract length. Also, this key indicated that the annual species could have stipitate glands.

S. arvensis: perennial, involucre bracts more than 14mm long in fruit, pubescent with stipitate glands

S. asper:annual, involucres less than 14mm, leaves with sharp and narrow pointed teeth, cypsela not wrinkled, but longitudinally nerved

S. oleraceus: annual, involucres bracts less than 14mm, leaves sharply and broadly toothed, lyrate pinnatifid (handy character), cypselae transversely wrinkled and longitudinally nerved

I had one last reference at my disposal; the Illustrated Flora of British Columbia . Fortunately the descriptions fit in pretty well with those found in H &C and Anderson.

S. arvensis: perennial, heads 3-5cm

S. oleraceus: annual or biennial: flower heads 1.5-2.5, cypselae several nerved and wrinkled

S. asper: annual or biennial, flower heads 1.5-2.5 cm, cypselae several ribbed, not wrinkled.

The handy thing about these taxa is that there doesn’t seem to be any noticeable disagreement in the taxonomy, just a bit of variation on which characters might be useful and a bit of haziness about how variable the presence/absence of certain character (glandular hairs).

So the synopsis of all keys

S. arvensis: perennial, straight auricles with rounded bases, may have woody stems, they may also be hollow, heads 3-5cm stipitate hairs present on the flower stems, and dark brown cypselae at maturity

S. asper: annual or biennial, stems not woody, may be hollow, leaves with sharp and narrow pointed teeth recurved auricles. Flower heads 1.5-2.5 cm and involucres bracts less than 14mm, fruit with 3 ribs on each face, not wrinkled

S. oleraceous:, annual or biennial, stems not woody, may be hollow. Leaves sharply and broadly toothed, lyrate pinnatifid, auricles straight, cypselae transversely wrinkled and longitudinally nerved

At this point, I’ve decided that for unambiguous identification (at least the first time around) I need mature seeds.

Back to the actual plants in hand; both have flowers less than 3cm (but neither are really fully open). Neither root system is obviously forming horizontal branches. The fruit aren’t fully mature, I can see ribs, but it isn’t clear if they are or will be wrinkled

One has rounded auricles, some stipitate hairs and very pointy large teeth on the leaf margins, the leaves are also darker and thicker. (I’m going with S. asper)

The second has straightish auricles with pointed bases, no hairs and less menacing teeth, the leaves are lyrate pinnatifid (like a dandelion) with a larger terminal segment. (going with S. oleraceus)

2011-05-14T08:58:00.002-08:00

About every ten years a bear makes its way to Galankin island. This year a 3 or 4 year old (200 lb+) bear wandered to Bamdoroshni, then swam across the channel to visit us. A neighbor saw it come ashore near the cable landing on the west side of the island.
It was next seen in the lawn at a house on the south end of the commons. From there it worked its way south along the shore past Litman's then went up the cliff from the transformer for my lot. There wasn't any sign of it sticking around the house though.
From Phil Mooney we heard that the bear had swam to Morne then to Kutkan Island. Fish and Game attempted to capture it so they could collar and move the bear, but couldn't get a safe shot. Deirdre and I saw the bear later in the day swimming near Kutkan island, then it climbed ashore.
We kind of relaxed out here for a day, but last night the bear reappeared at the Pendell's house (the beach near the deck), they scared it off, then it went to the Goffs (on the porch at the front door) and was shooed away. This morning we had a call from the Litman's reporting the bear was in their garden, then it wandered to the cabin and disappeared. It sounds like it also visited the Rush's island. At some point, it wandered up here and tore into the rhubarb, riffled through the compost and moved the mink trap (no bait). We searched the rest of the garden (banging our pot lid) but didn't find any other sign or tracks.

2011-05-10T21:16:00.005-08:00

Douglas Maple (Acer glabrum var. douglasii) is a deciduous tree that I mostly associate with Peril Strait and Shaman Island in Juneau. Arctos has a few records (Thatcher Point on Catherine island, Sitkoh Bay on Chichagof, Chaik Bay, Pybus Bay and Young bay on Admiralty island and Port Protection and Dry Pass on POW.

I first encountered maples in Alaska in 1981 near Neka Mtn on a limestone outcrop (other plants from the site include Polystichum lonchitis, Polemonium pulcherrium, and Asplenium trichomanes ramosum (viride) on a trip to the Eva islands on the Romance. That lone maple had a large canopy overhanging the beach. Over the years I’ve noticed a few trees along the Peril Strait shore (Lindenberg head, near Todd) in the fall when the leaves had turned bright yellow, but it encounters with native maple are rare for me.

On a trip to False Island this last weekend, I was lucky enough to find another one. Searching for plants wasn’t the goal of the trip, we were there to set up 4 deer exclosures to try to get at the effect of deer on vegetation in treated clear-cuts (thinned or gapped). At the end of the first day we were close to a beach and decided to spend a few moments on a sunny beach (young growth tends to be a bit dark). Fortunately, I can’t seem to resist walking down a beach and so found the maple. What drew me in was the luxurious growth of Lobaria pulmonaria on the trunks. It was only later that I noticed the opposite twigs (no leaves yet). Besides the Lobaria, the trunk had healthy growth of Metzgeria, Porella, and a bit of Ramalina (sp).

This small maple tree (to 5 m in Anderson and 10m in Pojar) is easy to recognize as such, it has pretty typical looking lobed leaves and samaras that most people associate with the genus. Characteristics that separate this variety of maple from the species include; red stems and shallowly lobed leaves with lobes > 6cm across. The flowers are yellow-green (not that I’ve seen them) as are the young v-shaped samaras.

Douglas maple is reported to be dioecious (separate staminate and pistillate flowers on the same plant), it seems like the ratio of male to female flowers on a given plant might be variable. The seeds are wind dispersed and reportedly have limited viability (?) and require a stratification period.

E-Flora BC has a nice photo and write up for this species.

Chris is about 6'4"

2011-04-28T22:16:00.003-08:00

I found the first Early blueberry (Vaccinium ovalifolium) blooming on the island on March 11. There are still early blues blooming (top photo), but many are on their way to being fruit. The now synonymized Alaska blueberry (Vaccinium alaskense) has been blooming for about a week. I haven't done a survey of flower color on the island, but the red ones do seem to be more abundant.
I've started tagging the blooming plants with labeled flagging so I can track the plants through to fruiting. I've never been convinced that the berry color is consistently darker in the Alaska blueberry, but that could be because I not sure which plant is which by the time they have fruit. I'm also hoping to collect a few leaves from each plant for DNA extraction/analysis to see if there is a consistent molecular difference. The work from last fall is a bit inconclusive as yet.
Golden crowned sparrows and a Hermit thrush have been on the island the last few days.

2011-04-24T09:32:00.005-08:00

I've had a few posts planned this spring about trips and what is blooming when, but they don't seem to be materializing just from thinking about writing them. Strange.

I did have the opportunity to go to Three Entrance Bay on Friday with Scott Harris and Sandra Lindstrom (visiting phycologist). We had a couple of short hours on the island so that Sandra could collect taxa of interest to her and I could soak up as much information as possible. I need a seaweed refresher a bit more often than once every 4 or 5 years.
My eyes were pretty focused on the algae and my ears on the sounds of a Common loon, winter wren and a Varied thrush or two. I'm almost embarrassed to to say that I hardly noticed any invertebrates, yes there were black turbans, a gumboot chiton, green anemones, ochre & sunflower stars and a black katy, but I'm pretty sure that another person would have noticed many more. My eyes were feasting on the chlorophyll rich kingdom. The seaweeds look so lush this early in the year, that it was hard to see anything else. There wasn't herring spawn in that bay or outer coast, so it was easy to see all the features of the blades.
A few algal highlights for me was tasting the Alaria marginata (excellent), it seems like it would be a nice complement to the black seaweed. Alaria has the added feature that each blade is larger and may not be in as high of demand. Another was the Tokidadendron bullatum, a delicate little red alga which tends to get beat up a bit over the season, so early is best. One deeper tide pool had the sides covered with Monostroma grevillei (Sea cellophane) and the center with large tufts of Palmeria mollis and coral seaweeds.
The photo on the right is a bit odd, but shows the iridescence of Mazzaella phyllocarpa, a red alga. It is probably relatively common, but isn't so easy to notice except when the light/angle is right.
Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) was blooming on the rocks.

2011-03-14T08:22:00.002-08:00

The below freezing temperatures were behind us for a couple days last week. It might have been Monday that it was sunny and I managed to get to town early enough to walk to work. Rewarded with the sight of some early blooming crocuses. These were benefiting from a large heat sink (building and pavement) and a southern exposure. The latter doesn't seem to be enough to bring the crocuses in my garden out of the ground.

2011-03-05T22:56:00.002-09:00

The return of warm weather over the last couple of days brought out a couple of birds that I haven't seen for several weeks. I flushed a snipe was in the small creek in the commons (the camera was safely tucked in the back pack) this morning on the way to town. This evening was lucky enough to spot a Western screech owl on a very short branch of a Red alder in the commons. It was near the two larger shops where I saw I've seen the last few birds.

2011-02-17T20:00:00.005-09:00

I've been counting birds on my commute between island and Crescent harbor again this fall and winter. It took awhile for me to get motivated this fall as there just weren't that many birds to count in September. I've been fairly faithful about counting since early October, keeping the data in a daily calendar instead of a spread sheet. The data entry will no doubt be great fun.

For at least a month now, I've been seeing birds that I couldn't quite make up my mind about. They were definitely alcids of some sort, just hadn't a good enough look at to decide which one. At first they reminded me of guillemots, just lacking the white wing patch. Some sort of murre made the most sense based on the features I could see. Given that winter Common murres have a distinctive black line on their cheek and winter Thick billed murres have a mostly black head, I decided that the mystery birds were most likely winter Thick-billed murres. I saw or thought I saw white on the chest so decided that these birds weren't in breeding plummage.
This last week, I've managed to get close enough to get a few photographs. I'm not sure about all of the birds I've seen the last month, but the birds in the photo seem to be Common murres in breeding plumage. The bill is thick, but doesn't seem to be the quite the right shape, the flanks are streaked and I'd be hard pressed to describe this bird as blockier than the rest of the Common murres that I've seen.
About half the birds I'm currently seeing on the commute are clearly winter plumage Common murres and the other half the same species in breeding plumage or possibly Thick-billed in some cases. Given that the birds reminded me of guillemots (all black chest) it might be safe to assume that most of the birds were breeding Common murres. Hard to say for certain though.
Now I'm pretty curious about the timing of plumage change in murres. Does it start this early most years or is it pretty variable? Guess I should add notes about plumage in the future.

2011-02-15T22:22:00.004-09:00

Finally managed to get up to the Upper Cross trail sampling site to change out the ibutton early in the afternoon. The trail was crunchy with ice and as I walked up the trail through the woods, Varied thrushes (at least 20) flew up and away from me. I was a walking illustration of a bird plow. Also saw several juncos and Pacific wrens, 2 Hairy woodpeckers and a Song sparrow. Heard Pine siskins, Crossbills, Chickadees and Kinglets.
I hadn't been in the Gavan site since I put out the ibuttons out on October 28th, so I assumed that it might take awhile to locate them. I was correct, in fact I was getting worried that I wouldn't find it in the time I had available. So in the interest of finding the tree again, I took a few photos.

2011-01-03T08:02:00.000-09:00

The main commons on Galankin island looks like a place recovering from intense industrial activity. In fact the land is more the equivalent of newly deglaciated as most of the area is fill related to the quarrying of rock for runway expansion in the 1960s. I'm not positive if the fill changed the shoreline of the island significantly or if the fill was just to even out the access to the quarry.
The vegetation is mixture of native and non-native pioneer species: Alnus rubra, A. viride var sinuata, Salix sitchensis, Rubus spectabilis and a few very sad looking Picea sitchensis and Tsuga heterophylla. The herbs include: Ranunuculus repens, Veronica americana, Aruncus diocus, Equisetum varigatum, Heracleum maximum and several species of Carex.

There is a pretty wide footpath through the commons that is part of the trail system connecting the common dock to most of the island lots. There are also 2 large, functional but ramshackle sort of buildings, and a couple of sheds filled with semi-abandoned long-line gear and outboards.

There is a small creeklet from the lake that enters the ocean via the lot on the south end of the commons.

Besides being an interesting place to look at plant succession, the commons has been a great place to see a good variety of birds. The mixture of vegetation, open ground, puddles and the small creek draining the lake seem to provide a variety of food sources and cover. Last fall I stalked Western Screech owl(s) in the commons, but this year I'm seeking Common snipe.
This isn't the first year I've seen snipe in the commons, the creek and brush seem to be to their liking. Typically I see a single bird that disappears mid fall, but this year I've seen multiple birds and they seem to be sticking around (or surviving?) longer. The high count was 4 birds on the 5th of November. The last time I saw a single snipe was the 30th of December.

I found the snipe in the typical fashion, that is getting very close without seeing them, snipe exploding into the air, and me jumping out of my socks. I have tried walking slowly and quietly while watching/looking carefully while I walked through the commons to see if I could manage to get a bit closer before they flushed. These efforts have met with a variable amount of success. Snipe are really hard to see for those of us that rely on a bit of movement to see well camouflaged birds. They also are really good at holding still until the last second. The best I've done is when a flock of juncos were working the ground. The juncos weren't spooked or were at least more tolerant of my walking. This time the snipe walked out of view behind the brush. Trying to get closer was not so successful.
I was kind of hoping to get a photo of a snipe, so I've taken to walking with my camera ready through the commons. No photos of snipe yet, but some great blurry "art" photos of shrubs.

2010-11-08T21:15:00.013-09:00

Armillarias seem to be one of the mushrooms that are found toward the end of the fall mushroom season. Not that they don't fruit earlier in the year, but that they seem to keep fruiting when most other species have given it up for the year. Although they fruit abundantly and don't get as gushy as say a Russula would with the heavy rains of October, individually they don't seem to hold up as long as other species, e.g. Golden chanterelles. The Armillarias seem to get mushy in a couple of weeks or less, while the Golden chanterelles seem to last for upwards of two months (it was very hard not picking the one near the trail to the house. I'm happy to report that the neighbors also resisted in the interest of learning just how long one of these fungi would hold up.

The mushrooms in the photos were fruiting in the lawn of the Crescent harbor green strip. The yellower ones were part of a large group fruiting under a couple of large Red alders and near a spruce tree near the basketball court. The darker red brown one was near the green sign between Lincoln St. and the basketball court.
The green sign individuals were growing in fairly tight groups, but not truly caespitose (not fused). They are darker, not striate at the cap margin and have fairly cobwebby veils that leave a ring zone on the stem. The caps had small dark fibrils or what might be called very minute scales. The stem base seems a bit bulbous, not not extreme. I cut cross sections of the gills and searched in vain for clamps at the base of the basidia.

The yellow-brown ones are both lighter in color and a bit different hue. The cap margin is noticeably striate. The veil didn't seem as cobwebby, but I didn't find many that still had intact partial veils. The other important feature is the fusion of the stem base. There were several groups of two or three in the lawn with stems fused at the base. There were minute dark fibrils, but nothing terribly noticeable without a dissecting scope.

In Trudell and Ammirati's Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest there is a fairly accessible discussion of the species that are known to occur in the PNW which I'll summarize:

A. nabsnona: smooth reddish-brown cap, pale upper & dark lower stipe, not cespitose, hardwoods
A. ostoyae: dark scales on cap, strong brownish ring, stipes often fused in clusters or bases enlarged, conifers and hardwoods
A. sinapina: slightly smaller cap than ostoyae, more of a cobwebby veil, cespitose in smaller clusters than ostoyae, usually with conifers
A. gallica: pinkish brown color, white cobwebby veil, bulbous based stipe, not cespitose, hardwoods
Based on this book, I'm leaning toward A. sinapina despite it being fond of conifers. How far do away can the conifer be? Does buried conifer debris work? Trudell and Ammirati note in the text that ostoyae and sinapina can be difficult to distinguish from one another, so I'm not betting my savings on this identification.

Then there is the key to North American Armillarias posted by Tom Volk. There are a few differences in species options; no ostoyae, add in solidipes and NABS XI.

We can eliminate nabsnona (no clamps seen), NABS XI (lacks double ring), and solidipes (ring isn't thick, no scales). The character used to distinguish between gallica and sinapina, is the size of the annulus cells. I did find some that looked larger, but haven't managed to get the micormeter and slide in the same location as yet. A. gallica is rare in the west, so it is probably less likely to be in the green.
The treatment in Mushrooms Demystified groups all of the species in Armillaria mellea group so wasn't of much help in this case.

2010-11-04T15:23:00.007-08:00

Hygrophorus pacificus

Fruiting near the entrance road to UAS and Mt. Edgecumbe hish school for at least the last month is a species of Hygrophorus that seems to fit H. pacificus. The mushrooms form a rather large group (about 70 individuals at one time) on the grass under a row of Sitka spruce. The are gregarious, and often quite close together, but I didn't see any stem fusion.

Characterisitcs:

Caps to 7cm across, slightly to moderately visicid and pale orange yellow to very pale yellow orange at the margins and strong yellow brown at the center ((ISCC-NBS color names).

The caps are convex when young, then upturned and a bit wavy when mature. The cap tissue doesn't react with KOH.

When dry the entire cap turns a medium brown (58)

The gills are pale cream, waxy and widely spaced and slightly decurrent. The gill trama is divergent (managed to get a decent cross section).

The stems are not viscid, cream in color without any noticeable surface features. The longest are close to 5cm tall.

The mushroom was somewhat aromatic, not almond-like though.

It keys out fairly easily to H. pacificus in both Arora and in the Pacific Northwest Key council site and the characteristics agree with the descriptions I found in the Hesler and Smith monograph.

2010-10-08T19:01:00.003-08:00

These two photos of Bear Mtn were taken from just east of the Galankin Island dock. The first on the 6th, the second this morning. The weather is cooler at sea level as well, I've been building fires in the wood stove for about two weeks now. This year I'm trying to primarily use wood instead of electricity, not because of the cost, but because I'm finding the ritual of building a fire when I get home to be rather enjoyable. Good thing Ian chopped a lot of wood when he was home otherwise, this ritual might not be so easy to maintain.

2010-05-29T15:17:00.012-08:00

On the third day of the trip we left Suloia bay to try yet again to venture up the outside coast of Khaz peninsula. We quickly figured out that was not happening. I had already lobbied to walk to Sea Lion cove if we had to wait another day (we had already visited the bad weather acessible parts of the wilderness). I had two excuses; it was a good way to spend a day waiting for the weather and I hadn't been there since I carried my then 9 month old daughter (now 22 ) on my back. It had clearly been way too long since I had been there.

The trail is in pretty good shape, I probably didn't need my boots except to get in and out of the skiff in the bay. We did notice that a bear had been digging under and taking bites (?) out of the boardwalk in a few places in the muskeg closest to the trailhead.

There was an impressive pile of obviously collected plastic garbage near the junction of the trail and the beach. Perhaps it is destined to get picked up?

There were a number of flowers blooming on the beach: Fragaria chiloensis, Arabis hirsuta, Carex macrocephala and Dodecatheon pulchellum and my favorite grass, Hierochloe odorata (by whatever name it goes by these days).

Calypso bulbosa was blooming under the spruce trees (near the surf board cache). It was interesting that we didn't see this orchid on the other uplift beaches we visited.

I spent some time with my nose in the uplift beach meadow looking for Botrychium, where I actually found it was right beside the trail.

There were several plants, B. spathulatum, all under 5 inches tall on both sides of the trail.

I suspect there is more of it growing further down the beach, but our time was limited, so didn't get to look on this visit. Given how quick the walk is to this beach, I really need to visit a bit more often.

We saw a large group of what was probably Sanderlings, one Dunlin and a Black bellied plover on the beach.

2010-05-29T12:14:00.007-08:00

Day two of the West Chichagof trip: We woke up to much calmer conditions, so we made another attempt to head up the coast to Khaz Head. Once again we decided it was prudent to turn around not too far outside Fortuna Strait.

At the beginning of Fortuna strait (from Leo's) there is an intriguing looking beach on the northwest shore. Since we couldn't proceed north, we opted to stop and check it out. The bight has a large kelp patch and the swell can make its way in, but it was okay for the c-dory.

The beach landing was alot less bumpy for the kayaks than it was at Leo's anchorage and it looks like the site is used regularly by kayakers making their way north. Scott pointed out that kayakers could see the ocean conditions from the camp making it an ideal spot.

There were holes about a foot wide and 6-8 inches deep in the gravel just above the log line. In some of the holes it was evident that a bear (or more) had has been digging Heracleum maximum. Some plants were mostly dug out others just eaten to the base of the leaves. We found scat with alot of gravel in it, not something I've noticed before.

Draba hyperborea was blooming on the rocks, no Calypsos lurking under the trees here., but there were a few new shoots of Coral root.

We motored on to Suloia and hiked up the 1 mile of trail to the lake. I had assumed that the trail followed the creek, but not so. Lots of plants were blooming in the muskeg including Andromeda polifolia and Coptis trifolia. Saw one Pergrine falcon and many swallows over the lake.

The inner anchorage was suitable for the C-dory, seems like a spot to check out in the future with a larger boat. Nice show of Dodecatheon pulchellum and Ranunuculus occidentalis flowers in the estuary meadow. We had a much more restful night at anchor.

2010-05-26T23:44:00.007-08:00

Went on the first of the Wilderness stewardship trips planned for this summer (May 20-24). Our plan was to visit sites in Slocum arm, Myriads, Khaz head and Leo's anchorage, we managed to get to some of those sites.

I went with Scott Harris and Jay Kinsman (FS archaeologist) aboard Scott's 22ft c-dory, the Alacrity. The idea was to run up the outer coast of Khaz peninsula the first day and slowly work our way up the inside waters of the wilderness stopping in sites of botanical or archalogical interest. The sea conditions turned us around in Fortuna strait, so we anchored in Leo's anchorage and went to shore in the kayaks. Lake Leo supports a run of sockeye that has been utilized by both First Nations and European americans for subsistance purposes.

There is just a short distance between the lake and the beach, the topography is flat and the vegetation relatively open and park-like. There were signs of recent use (camp fires) and of older use (culturally modified trees). Jay suggested that the trees were modified for sap production. We also found a few cedar trees that had been peeled.

We circumambulated the lake, not too troublesome, there was only one steep bit of shore line and it didn't require any scrambling.
A few of the areas of flat shoreline had small pockets of fen-like vegetation: Carex lenticularis and/or aquatilis dives, Callliergon cordifolium, Sphagnum, Sanguisorba and Caltha palustris. No sign of toads or beaver, but there was sign of bear and deer use.

There was a bit of trash and other less annoying signs of camping activity on the northeast side of the lake. Given the short and probably easy portage from the beach to the lake, I'm not too surprised.

The weather was sunny and calmish on our walk around the lake, but seems to have blown up rather fiercely from the south toward the evening. The boat was doing some serious bouncing around, so we opted to eat dinner on the beach . Managed to get back to the boat during a bit of calm weather, but had a pretty bumpy night in the anchorage.

2010-05-18T07:43:00.004-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I found several (I counted 7) Gyromitra esculenta growing through the weeds and moss (R. loreus) near the burn pile. None were growing in the ash, although one was just out of the ash zone with alot of Funaria hygrometrica. The largest was just over 5 inches tall, the smallest at this point was around 2 inches. The fungi still look pretty fresh today.

To confirm identification I relied on the wrinkled, folded nature of the cap, detachment of the cap from the stem, the relatively slender stem and the presence of 2 oil droplets in the spores.

This fungus is typically listed as a saprophyte, but may also be mycorrhizal. I froze three of the sporocarps for DNA extraction. I'm hoping to build up a reference library to help identify the fungi we isolate from soil. Despite the species name, don't eat this one, it has been reported to cause fatalities.
Two good resourses online are: Tom Volks and Mushroom Expert's

Another fungus fruiting in the garden is Agrocybe praecox

2010-04-05T08:20:00.003-08:00

Walked to the third bridge on Indian River trail on Sunday afternoon. Both Vaccinium ovalifolium and alaskense were blooming, as was Lysichiton americanum and a few Coptis asplenifolia.

2010-04-02T09:29:00.003-08:00

The herring fishery had an opening in Eastern channel this afternoon. Earlier they were doing test sets. I think it is time for a telephoto lens...

I see individual Pelagic cormorants most days commuting to town, but rarely see them in groups on the water. On land, it seems to be pretty normal to see large groups, I've counted up to 80 cormorants on the rocks west of Galankin. Last week in Klag Bay, we saw a group of 12-16 more like I tend to see Pacific Loons, in fact the lighting was poor and I assumed that they were loons until I got a better look at them. Since that time, I've noticed a few large groups of Pelagic cormorants. Perhaps something that happens when large schools of herring are around or a breeding season behavior?

Totally unrelated, I saw a Little Brown Bat on the way home. It fluttered across the trail not to far below the house and into a group of young hemlocks.

2010-03-31T12:09:00.005-08:00

All three tall shrubs of Vaccinium are blooming now on the island. Vaccinium parvifolium is usually the last to start. There are only a few shrubs blooming behind the garden next to the wood shed.

2010-03-16T13:49:00.000-08:00

There are several Alaska blueberries (Vaccinium alaskense) blooming along the trail near the house. The Early blueberries are on the back side of full bloom, some flowers have lost their petals and look like there might be fruit developing.

2010-02-19T13:59:00.004-09:00

I spent part of this sunny and warm day (52F in the shade) in the garden. Seems like a number of plants are getting started exceptionally early this year, including the French sorrel, lupines and rhubarb. I was pretty sure I saw a bumblebee working the Viburnun flowers, but didn't manage to document it.

2010-02-14T19:53:00.002-09:00

This photo is from April 13, 2009, this same plant is blooming today, probably the earliest I've seen a blueberry flower in the garden. This particular shrub is usually the first to bloom in the garden. I'm not sure why it blooms first, it lives on the east side of the house, in a shady spot, about 10 ft from the house. There was also one crocus about ready to open in the garden.

2010-01-31T21:27:00.005-09:00

I got lucky this evening. I brought the camera with me to town this evening, I had given up chasing the owl with a camera for at least a week. I didn't see the owl for 14 days, then saw it again on the 29th closer to the buildings near the dock. On the 29th, it flew across my path (I thought from the ground, but wasn't sure) from near Vern's building to a sitka alder near an abandoned shed.

Tonight the owl was perched about 8-10ft off the ground in a branch of a Red alder. Not a brillant photo, but I was happy enough.

2010-01-18T18:58:00.006-09:00

January 14

Walking home through the commons about 9pm I saw a Western Screech owl perched on a short willow branch over the trail. I'd seen an owl in the same spot on the 9th of January and the 8th of December. The branch is about 6 ft off the ground and must afford a pretty good view of where the owl likes to hunt. The owls on this perch seem to be pretty tolerant of traffic, one time I walked slowly right under it without causing it to fly off. This time the owl flew off after a minute or so and landed in a large Red alder near the lake outlet stream. Before it flew off, it was making very soft whistle-like calls, they were quiet enough I wasn't entirely sure it was this bird. As I was approaching the owl, I heard loud, but distant "bouncing ball" sort of call, followed by the softer calls of the near by bird. This call trading went back and forth for a couple of minutes before it stopped and I moved on.

This was the first time I've heard the island owls, typically I see them, often getting pretty close to the birds.

I haven't found any sign of what this or these birds have been eating on or near the trail, but I haven't looked too far. The Western screech owl that lived in the commons a few years back managed to catch a Varied thrush and a Hairy Woodpecker near the trail and left some nice piles of feathers.

I've been carrying the camera back and forth to town in the hope of getting a photo of one of the birds. No luck yet, but I did get some photos of their habitat. The lower photo is of the area to the south of the willow perch.

The vegetation is the commons is pretty similar to a fairly recently disturbed riparian site; Red Alder, Sitka alder, Sitka willow, Elderberry and Salmonberry. There large patches of trailing buttercup and horsetail as well. The commons has a some human detritus and several buildings. Besides birds and insects, I"m not sure what there is for the owls to eat on the island. I don't know of any rodents on the island. I don't think I've heard of anyone catching any in their house or seeing one in the woods. I suppose I could set live traps to see who is out there. There aren't any squirrels, so perhaps the smaller rodents didn't make it over. What we do have are newts. We did have one owl succumb to newt poison.

2010-01-07T08:38:00.004-09:00

December 29th

I decided that it was past time to take Deirdre and Ian up to the west valley of Indian River. The weather was sunny, calm and cool. What better way to spend a sunny day than in the forest? We didn’t exactly get an early start; all of us have shifted to the late to bed, late to rise schedule. We started on the trail around noon. I briefly thought about taking them up through the muskegs and down along the river, but neither kid had rubber boots and I am a bit less confident with the route between the muskeg and the big tree forest. There was very little snow; we saw a few scattered small clumps. The lack of snow made travel pretty easy particularly in the brushy bit just beyond the first bridge. It was pretty quiet bird wise (we were kind of chatty though) except for a dipper singing near the cascades and either kinglets or creepers in a couple of spots.
One of the most striking things we saw was a small bright orange streamlet flowing into the main bluish/clear main channel. There were masses of stringy colonies of what I assume are iron oxidizing bacteria or at least iron accumulating bacteria (I don’t know if the colonies I saw were responsible for the oxidation or just hoarding the precipitated iron). I’m kicking myself for not bringing a small jar with me; it would have been interesting to take a closer look at the critters.
I’m assuming that the iron comes from leaching of soils (spodosols typically leach iron and aluminum) and from weathering of rock (checked with Dave D’Amore on this one who concurred). The Fe2+ is mobile in the soil, Fe3+ not so much. The iron cations interact with negatively charged particles (colloids) and are somehow responsible for colloid movement and soil development around here. I’m hopeful that Dave will supply a bit more information about that point.
Whether the iron is oxidized by the bacteria or the oxygen in the water/atmosphere isn’t clear. Fe2+ →Fe3+ happens pretty readily in aerated solutions when the pH is above 5. The pH of Indian river in a USGS report ranged from 6.5-8.1. So, it could be that most of the oxidation of iron happens at the junction of the low oxygen hyporheic zone and the above ground river or stream?
There definitely are iron associated bacteria present in the stream. One species of freshwater bacteria that oxidizes iron, Gallionella ferruginea, uses Fe2+ as an electron donor (cellular respiration/electron transport . I’m guessing that the oxidation of Fe2+ is coupled with the reduction of NAD+→NADH?
Other iron associated bacteria bind already oxidized iron: sheathed bacteria; Leptothrix, Clonothrix, and Sphaerotilus basically iron oxide (rust ) sticks to the sheaths at their cell surfaces. Hence the orange or brown color of the colonies. Other bacteria and fungi produce siderophores to capture the Fe3+ (haven’t found names yet). Once chelated, the iron can be transported into the fungal or bacterial cells by active transport mechanisms.
One website I found talked about the growth of the mat (if it is the oxidizing bacteria) to the supply of Fe2+ and dissolved organic carbon. Given our soils, I suspect that supply is pretty constant if there is precipitation. Another supply of reduced iron is bacterial reduction of iron in anoxic zones below the river.
Most of my fascination with the iron bacteria manifested itself after the hike as we wanted to get up to the big trees and the falls and back before dark. The following links are some sites I found useful.
General Microbiology
Haw River Assembly

What is the Red in the Water

Pescadero Conservation Alliance

So back to the hike; like I said previously, the lack of snow made travel pretty easy compared to some winter trips I’ve taken, it also made it easy to see the extent of the deer browse on the Blueberry browse. A lot of the plants were around 1ft tall.
On the way up to the big tree, Ian kept pointing out relatively small trees as the potential big tree, guess I’ve neglected to take Ian into productive forests. Both kids seemed impressed with the tree; Ian climbed into the cavity (mostly because I said that I had climbed in, of course I neglected to tell him until afterwards that I had a bit of help).
We also went up to the falls (very little ice) where we spent most of our time picking through the rocks in the creek bed. Found metamorphosed greywacke (pelite?), some suspicious looking potential serpentine and lots of regular greywacke.
I didn’t get too far getting Deirdre to write up something on the rocks she found in the valley (too many applications to write), but she did come up with a synopsis on the basic rock of our area.
Sitka Greywacke is an extensive unit found predominately on Baranof, Chichagof, Kruzof, and Yakobi islands. The name 'greywacke' is slightly misleading, as the group is formed of both greywacke, a rock made up of poorly sorted quartz and feldspar fragments in a clay matrix, and argillite, fine-grained lithified mud. Particles present in the greywacke are derived from a region containing sedimentary and low-grade metamorphic rocks, as well as volcanics, which were lithified on the ocean floor during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, dated by fossils found in limestone-rich portions of the unit. Parts of the unit have been regionally metamorphosed to a low grade, and complexly folded, as well as contact metamorphosed by nearby plutonic intrusions.

2009-12-21T14:35:00.003-09:00

Sunrise from Galankin Island (upstairs deck). The sun came up over the mountains east of the Pyramids around 9:35am.

2009-12-16T08:16:00.002-09:00

November 13, 2009
I got ambitious this evening. Maybe it was the snow that fueled the domestic fires or perhaps it was just another way to avoid work. At any rate, I managed to bake a pumpkin for Thanksgiving pies, started soda culture and at long last I started a batch of wine.
My most recent attempt at beverage fermentation did not go well. The late September batch of soda didn’t ferment at all. Not sure what happened, it seemed like the culture was fizzy and there was sugar in the berries, but the bottled soda was tasty, but without fizz. My best guess at the most likely cause is inadequate cooling of the berry mix before adding the bacterial culture. In other words, I killed the bacteria with very hot juice. Guess I can’t carry on a conversation while brewing, so much for multi-tasking.
Back to the wine; I used 4 lbs of frozen red huckleberries (Vaccinium parvifolium) and blueberries (V. ovalifolium [honest, it was a single species]). I didn’t keep track of the ratio of berry types, but it was mostly red hucks. I loosely followed the amounts called for in a recipe that Michelle Putz and Perry Edwards gave us at the wine workshop. Loosely, in that I used the called for amount of sugar, berries, yeast and water, but left out the yeast nutrient, Campden tablet and acid blend included in the recipe. The recipe was for a completely different huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata), but maybe it will work well enough. I’m using yeast that Perry gave me; I don’t remember what sort of yeast it is. I mostly followed his guidelines for the yeast “mix in a coffee cup full of water with about ¼ cup sugar, let stand for about 5 hours, and then add to the berry mix. I didn’t quite let it sit that long, more like 4 hours.
I had a plastic bucket with lid (washed and sterilized with boiling water). I added the berries, poured on the boiling water, then added the sugar. Apparently I was supposed to add the sugar later. Whoops. Not doing well following directions, these days. I suspect that adding boiling water to the berries is supposed to help kill the biota on the surface of the berries. I don’t think that the sugar is going to interfere with that process. I decided that the kitchen counter is the best place to leave the bucket, if there is any hope of stirring the juice every day. The counter is getting a bit crowded, in addition to the large vat of pre-wine, there is a jar of soda culture, another of sour dough and a batch of yogurt going. Long live yeast and bacteria!
On the 27th of November, the somewhat fermented juice should be transferred to a glass jug.
Part II
It took me until the 28th of November to assemble the gear I needed for step 2. I thought that buying a gallon glass jar would be easy; proceed to Lakeside or Seamart and buy a gallon of apple or cranberry juice and haul it home (this was supposed to be the hard part). Alas, plastic jugs seem to be the article of choice these days. There was a gallon jar of Gallo wine available at the liquor store, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy it. It seemed a bit weird to buy wine that I had no intention of drinking (okay I’m a snob) and worse to dump it out, so I went home empty handed and stewed for an evening. Fortunately the next day I found a 5 gallon glass demijohn at Rain Country and was able to lug that home. Straining the berries was a bit of slow chore. I sterilized the colander with boiling water, and then ladled the juice into the demijohn via an unsuitably small funnel. The juice was a rich purple red color and I was feeling rather pleased and contented when I discovered the next minor issue. I had found my airlock, but forgot to check for a stopper. No such item lived in the house, but I did find a bit of kids modeling clay in the pantry. So I put the airlock in the demijohn and sealed the edge with clay. This looked pretty good, but I decided it might be better to order a stopper and a new airlock (mine was missing the inner cap). I wasn’t confident that that clay would prevent air from entering the demijohn. The stopper and new airlock arrived a couple of days later and I replaced the cobbled together unit.
Fermentation seems to be proceeding what I hope is a reasonable rate. There are both small and very large bubbles covering most of the surface of the wine. Bubbles of gas (I presume CO2) are escaping the airlock.
The wine is supposed to stay in the demi-john for 3-6 months or the bubbles stop escaping the airlock. Good thing I have plenty of counter space.

2009-11-14T17:19:00.002-09:00

November 13, 2009

I got ambitious this evening. Maybe it was the first snow that fueled the domestic fires or perhaps it was just another way to avoid work. At any rate, I managed to bake a pumpkin for Thanksgiving pies, started soda culture and at long last I started a batch of wine.
The last batch of soda didn’t ferment at all. Not sure what happened, it seemed like the culture was fizzy and there was sugar in the berries. The most likely problem was inadequate cooling of the berry mix before adding the culture. Intense conversations while brewing may not be the best thing for me.
For the wine I used 4 lbs of red huckleberries and blueberries (mostly red hucks). I loosely followed the amounts called for in a recipe that Michelle Putz and Perry Edwards gave us at the wine workshop. I say loosely because I used the amount of sugar, berries, yeast and water, but left out the yeast nutrient , Campden tablet and acid blend included in the recipe. The recipe was for a completely different huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata), but maybe it will work well enough. I’m using yeast that Perry gave me, I don’t remember what sort of yeast it is. I followed his guidelines for the yeast “mix in a coffee cup full of water with about ¼ cup sugar, let stand for about 5 hours, then add to the berry mix.
I had a plastic bucket with lid (washed and sterilized with boiling water). I added the berries, poured on the boiling water, then added the sugar. Apparently I was supposed to add the sugar later. Whoops. On the 27th of November , I’ll proceed to step 2. One piece of advice that I'll try to remember to follow is to keep a calendar of when to proceed to the next step.

2009-11-12T14:30:00.004-09:00

Visited Totem Park this week during the dry weather to collect lichens for air quality sampling. The target species were Platismatia glauca and Alectoria sarmentosa. Not exactly rare species, but they seemed less abundant when I had limited time to collect the 25 g required.

The first session I collected Platismatia mostly from the westward side of the park. I mostly found it on fallen branches, but some came from the spruce branches overhanging the beach. The protocol allows for collecting Platismatia from branches on the ground as long as the material isn't discolored. There was abundant Usnea on the west side, but not much Alectoria at least not within reach. On one foray into the woods looking for branches, I found a few more Goodyera oblongifolia plants. The plants were in the same general area as the plant I found last year, just a bit further back in the woods. They seemed to be about the same stage of development (no sign of a flowering stalk) and size as the first plant. Goodyera has tiny wind or ground insect dispersed seeds that require fungal infection for growth in the wild. Greenhouse studies say that it takes up to a year between germination and production of the first leaves. I've also gleaned from other sources that it might take up to 3 years before a plant is mature (flowering) . Each rosette only produces one flowering stalk, after the seeds ripen, that rosette dies. Apparently production of new rosettes from the parent rhizome accompanies flowering. Interesting mixture of reproductive strategies. There was a good discussion of Goodyera biology/taxonomy and ecology at this website. It might be interesting to identify the symbionts of these orchids and compare them with what we have found in the local Platanthera species. I'm not confident that I found the first plant in its first year of leafy growth, but if I did and assuming that it needs to be at least 3 years old before flowering, 2011 might be the summer I might find a flower stalk?

I had to return to the park a second time to collect Alectoria. That lichen is more abundant on the east side of the park. Apparently this species deteriorates quickly, so the collections can't be from the ground. There wasn't much Alectoria available and off the ground. Fortunately it is bigger than Platismatia, so I have plenty to send in for analysis.

There were still fungi fruiting in the park; Pholiota alnicola (?), Clavaria (Clavariadelphus) purpurea, Craterellus infundibulformis, Hygrophorus olivaceoalbus, Lactarius alpinus, Panellus serotinus and Pleurocybella porrigens.

2009-11-09T19:30:00.003-09:00

November 8

I was fortunate enough to go out to the island Saturday at 4:30 and stay there until 1:30 the next day. It was a rewarding bit of home time both from the stand point of regaining some energy, accomplishing a few things and being treated to some enjoyable sights and sounds.

On one break from writing I went outside to plant some tulips (the latest ever!) and heard the distinct sound of a flock of shorebirds below the house. So decided to venture down the cliff to see if I could be quiet enough to watch them for awhile. Now, I'm not sure if I was actually quiet or if the birds weren't too worried about a large creature above them on the beach. At any rate, I sat and listened for awhile. There were about 120 mixed Surfbirds and Black Turnstones on the rocks; working the Fucus. They would scatter when the occasional big wave covered the rocks. I didn't do so well capturing their periodic flights, but I enjoyed them never the less.

While down there, a flock of about 20-30 Swans flew over headed in the direction of Aleutikina.

2009-09-14T08:45:00.003-08:00

It seems like every year I see several fungi that I either haven't seen or haven't noticed previously. This year has not been an exception.

One surprise was finding this salmon colored Laetiporus or Chicken of the Woods near Otter Lake (Goulding Lakes) on Chichagof Island. It was growing on half buried wood on the ground in an alluvial fan with mixed Western Hemlock and Sitka Spruce overstory and a shrub understory dominated by Early Blueberry. There were open areas on the fan with a few Red alder (many senescent) and relatively unvegetated gravel

The salmon color of this fungus was striking, almost glowing on the green background. From a distance I thought this was a Laetiporus, but was a bit more dubious after I saw the white under side. The abundant version of Laetiporus has a bright yellow under surface.

The piece I collected gradually faded to an orange color on the upper surface, but the lower surface remains white.

Arora in Mushrooms Demystified talks about a rare variety of sulphureus, semialbinus, with features that match this fungus. I'm not sure about the fate of this variety as sulphureus is no longer used for North American species.

Michael Kuo (Mushrooom Expert) has a page on a similar featured Laetiporus, cincinnatus, that occurs east of the Rockies and prefers hardwoods. I haven't found a western counterpart as yet, so I might just refer to this one as a variety of conifericola. I'm not sure that the fungus from Otter Lake wasn't growing on buried Red Alder, there were a few in the area
I did find a resource on the web; The Genus Laetiporus in North America by H. Burdsall and Mark Banik that was somewhat helpful.
The only two taxa that I saw listed with a white pore surface was Laetiporus, cincinnatus and L. gilbertsonii var. pallida. Both occur on hardwoods and southeastern Alaska seems far out of range.
I might have to post this one on Mushroom Observer to get a few more leads.

2009-08-22T09:08:00.003-08:00

The road to Fairbanks is rather convoluted for a Sitkan. We started on the MV Fairweather on Thursday; spent the night in Juneau at the Mendenhall Campground (outwash is hard); took the Malaspina to Haines and spent last night at a campground we had visited years ago while taking in the Southeast State Fair.

I haven't spent much time looking around me; the heavy rains and general distraction of keeping things going in the right direction have been a bit of a deterrant.

We did stop at Mendenhall Glacier for a quick photo of Deirdre and to let her look at the rocks from her new perspective. She gets pretty excited by striations and weird textures.

We noticed alot of people hanging out in front of the restrooms; now this isn't unusual in a busy tourist area, but they had cameras and were busily snapping photos. Finally saw a group of fledgling Barn swallows on the ledge just above the Restroom sign. There were 4 when I took the photos; later there was a 5th bird. A parent visited twice while I was watching.

So far this is a three tarp camping trip; one under the tent, one over the tent and one over the eating area.

2009-08-09T22:00:00.004-08:00

Picked a sandwich container of Arnica lanceolata ssp prima at the shore of Lake Rezanof near the old cabin and our camp site. My intention was to do a bit of experimentation with the plant. I was pretty sure that only the flowers were used for medicinal purposes, but didn't want to collect too many in case I was incorrect about that assumption. I also dug up a small clump for the garden.

I had hoped that Janice Schofield's book "Discovering Wild plants" would have a recipe for preparing a cream for aches and pains. No such luck. A bit of research turned up a few articles on preparation of tinctures which can be used to treat bruises (I bruise very easily), bug bites (I was covered) and aches (not usually an issue).

The flowers filled an 8oz spagetti jar a bit more than 3/4 full, then I covered then with cheap vodka, and put the jar in the dark. The Doctor quoted in the Herb Companion article (http://www.herbcompanion.com/Health/Natural-healing-Arnica-montana-Natural-Magic.aspx) gave the following recipe: " 1 part arnica flowers and 10 parts 96 percent alcohol should be put together in a bottle and left for a week, during which the bottle should be shaken. Then the flowers can be removed. It is important that this alcoholic solution must be diluted with water from three to ten fold..."

Seems like my mixture will probablly be on the strong side, so I'll go with the 1 to 10 dilution (or maybe a bit more).
In the same article another person said to leave the steeping tincture in a sunny place for 3 weeks. At this point, I'm going to leave the jar in the pantry while I do a bit more research.

The species most often used medicinally, Arnica montana, is native to Europe and I'm not sure if North American species have been tested in any way for effectiveness.

The Doctor in the Herb Companion article said that the active ingredient in Arnica are Sesquiterpene lactones which seem to inhibit the release of inflammatory mediators e.g. transcription factor NF-kB, which seems to be involved in a number of basic cellular processes besides inflammation.

Sesquiterpene lactones aren't entirely benign; doesn't sound like Arnica should be ingested internally in anything but extremely small doses (homoeopathic sort of doses seem to be okay). Seems like I should be a bit cautious trying this tincture as it could cause contact dermititis.

2009-07-16T22:58:00.006-08:00

"Two little feet to get me 'cross the mountain

two little feet to carry me away into the woods

two little feet, big mountain and a

cloud comin down, cloud comin down, cloud comin down

I hear the voice of the ancient ones

chanting magic words from a different time

Well there is no time there is only this rain

there is no time, that's why I missed my plane"

Decided to refer back to my journal and a Greg Brown song for the third part of "Waste Not Want Not"

This is what I wrote (with some editing)

On day two of of waiting a day for a pickup, Jonathan and I decided to abandon the richness of our shelter for the less than certain chance of a floatplane pick up at sea level. We were motivated by travel plans (me to Glacier bay, Jonathan to Washington and Idaho) and by losing our only way to communicate with the outside world (Barth and Mary made it out in the morning). They left us food and a tent cached at Sisters lake, our job was to get there and hopefully meet a Ward Air plane at 5pm. There is a trail from Rust to Sisters lake, so this didn't sound all that bad and in fact it was quite doable. What is so bad about carrying alot of stuff downhill?

We left the tarp structure standing, the tent up and the less desirable food, garbage and traps up a tree. I somehow managed to fit all of my belongings into the large pack andstrapped the day pack to the outside of it. Jonathan carried the press and the few of his belongings that would fit in a large dry bag/pack, his camera bag and sleeping bag. Then there was the food bag with radio and water bottle; rather heavy, but it needed to come with us.

Paddling across the lake was a bit easier this time; serenaded by Jonathan and at the beginning a loon. The beginning of the trail wasn't terribly obvious,but we did find it. The trail itself was rather tricky, appearing and disappearing at rather inconvenient times. Alas I sent us off on a very wrong turn which added some distance and some totally unnecessary elevation gain. The trip down took much longer than the 1.5-2hours Barth thought it would. The wrong turn and the ridiculously heavy load didn't help. Happily we made it down in plenty of time, found the stashed gear and food, relaxed for a few minutes and then the Cessna arrived.

The float plane was wonderfully warm and dry after that sloppy wet walk.

The ceiling was just barely above 500 ft, we traveled along the outside coast of Khaz then down the outside of Kruzof as Salisbury was full of clouds. Great aerial tour of sandy beaches and survey of trollers on the eve of opening day. We finally made it across Kruzof just north of Mt Edgecumbe.

Mary met us at the Forest Service dock and saw Barth cheering from the fuel dock. It was nice to make it back in time for a cheeseburger, shower, deal with the plant press, laundry and repack for Glacier bay.

Left the house at 4:45, flew to Juneau, had breakfast at the Silverbow, did some grocery shopping and left Juneau for Glacier bay at 11am on board the Iyoukeen.

It turned out to be 10 days of sun

2009-07-15T10:48:00.001-08:00

Must be time to get up to the Harbor Gavan trail. Ian returned home this morning with these flowers tucked in his pack strap.

2009-07-14T12:14:00.009-08:00

" Waste not, Want not" part II

There were two reasons to go to Rust Lake, one was simply logistics, Mary and Barth were planning a trip there to look at options for restoring the lake and the other was the band of marble/limestone that occured nearby.

The second morning we set up off up the valley toward one of the carbonate outcrops. Fortunately it was a relatively obvious path, as I had managed to leave the aerial photos and topo behind in my hurry.

We crossed the creek at the second or third gravel bar, found several (14) poppies (not blooming) and further off towards the cut bank, several bones of a long dead bear. Long enough time had passed that there was moss growing on the bones (not fruiting though). Didn't see any knawing on the bones which seemed a bit odd. Thought that a large source of nutrients would have been pretty attractive.

Carried on up the river; through open meadows, another gravel bar with poppies, then dove into the scrubby forest. Not too far along, I tripped over something (very unusual) and saw about 4ft in front of me a very small, spotted fawn tucked under a blueberry bush. . It held very still for a time (I'm not here,really), then scampered off. Felt rather badly about disturbing it, I'm hoping that mom found it again.

Not too much further on, found more of the green appressed Nephroma on another Mountain hemlock and a smallish Sorbus sitchensis.

As we climbed (pretty gentle incline), the vegetation shifted from moderately productive mountain hemlock to mixed conifer interspersed with more typical muskeg/bog areas. The feeling was still of upper elevations; there was plenty of Cassiope mertensiana, Elliotia, and Nephrophyllidium crista-galli.

Like I hinted at in the last post, I had forgotten my aerial photos (I studied them, but how much was I going to remember?) at home and forgot that there was a small lake below the limestone area. Fortunately, we ended up on the open muskeg side of the lake (still had ice) and it was pretty easy getting around. We had a bit of a sun break here (may have been the only one of the day). Once around the lake, we went a bit further along the pass to Patterson Bay, before heading up the much steeper slope to get to the open rock. The rock on the west side of the pass was not carbonate.

Found Polystichum lonchitis and Asplenium trichomanes -ramosum at the base of the mountain. I haven't really decided what to call the place; is it a moutain? it goes above tree line, it seems more like a nunatak, but I'm sure that term should only be used to describe mountains above the icefields. Might stick with nunatak for now.

Going up the slope was interesting (code for slightly scary); I hadn't any prior experience with karst topography, but had read enough to be aware of sinkholes, but not how sharp some of the rock formations were. There was smooth rock, areas that were deeply vertically incised into channels by water (solifluction rills? Grikes?), sinkholes, column-like areas within sinkholes and really sharp mini mountains. Gloves would have been handy as would tougher rain pants. I managed to rip a few holes in my raingear clinging to the rock (I missed the sticky rock of Red Bluff).

From a brief conversation with Deirdre, it seems that the difference in weathering might be caused by differences in mineralization or metamorphism?

The P. lonchitis was abundant; and some of it was as large as sword ferns I'd seen down south. It was interesting that this fern was growing from the lower slopes to the top of the nunatak (in crevices only on top).

There was still alot of snow in large patches, most of which we didn't walk on; it was kind of difficult to tell if there was ground below the snow or if it was a "Snow field of death".

There were alot of interesting plants on the hike, including Anemone parvifolia, Saxifraga oppositfolia, Erigeron humilis, Silene acaulis and a few species of willows (including reticulata).

On top found Geum rossii on a few outcrops; abundant Pedicularis oederi and Oxytropis campestris (or some segregate). There were two species that I hadn't seen around here; Lloydia serotina ( a rather small lily-looking flower) and Thalictricum alpinum (not blooming). Both were growing in very shallow soil over rock. I was anxious to find the latter, earlier in the hike I was conjuring it out of weird looking columbine foliage. This species of Thalictrum is substantially smaller than the columbines, but the foliage pattern is pretty similar.

There were patches of meadow-like alpine plants; Arnia, Geranium, lupine, Columbine and Pink Paintbrush.

The going got much more certain on the top, it seemed that there was a mixture of rock types on the top. Despite the cloudy and frequently rainy weather, the view was pretty spectacular.

Saw a Rock Ptarmigan (?) still in winter plummage, RC thought that the males remain in winter plummage longer than females and kind of act as a distraction for predators.

I was rather relieved when we found an easier way down than the way we came up. I wasn't looking forward to clinging to the sharp rock while finding footing. As it was, I was grateful to accept a hand a couple of times over gaping holes.

2009-07-14T10:22:00.010-08:00

"waste not, want not" (Part I)

Rust lake experience turned out to have rather convoluted logistics, marginal weather, but very interesting natural history.

Things started out a bit crazy; Richard and I got to the float dock a tiny bit late and Mary Emerick looking a bit frantic with a phone in her hand. It turned out that RC's partner's father had passed away and he couldn't go on the trip. This left me a bit frantic, it was the second trip in a week that would have been cancelled for some reason or other and I was beginning to feel like I wouldn't get anything done on the Wilderness survey project. After some frantic phone calls looking for a last minute substitute (on another phone, I couldn't find mine), I gave up and went to yoga and ate some pizza. At about 2pm, I found my phone and a field partner, Jonathan Goff. Called dispatch, arranged a flight and off we went. I should have taken the time to get a sat phone and perhaps checked my backpack for the aerial photos and topo map...

We did have half the food, some gear and a boat with oars (no life jackets, no outboard) and landed at the lake without much of an issue. The only question was; when were Barth and Mary going to join us?

The rest of the day, we set up camp; fortunately Jonathan found a large tarp in the trees (not since grad school had I felt so materially wealthy) and two 8ft (?) treated 2x4's and two 2x2's and we built a pretty skookum shelter. My earlier attempts at building a shelter from alder was fairly pathetic, but it kept me entertained.

Rust lake was dammed in 19?? as a reservoir for a power supply for a Sister's lake mining operation. They put a valve that seems to have malfunctioned at some point and Rust lake has a lower water level than it had in the past; there is a noticable band of rock or gravel (bathtub ring) around the lake.

The beach near the campsite had a cover of Racomitrioideae and Stereocaulon (brown apothecia) with scattered small spruce, mountain hemlock and sitka alder. There were deer and goose tracks along the shoreline below camp and a somewhat pesky pair of nesting mew gulls on a large rock in the lake near shore. They didn't seem to appreciate dish washing.

The next morning we decided to try to paddle across the lake to see if Barth and Mary were in sight. Paddling proved rather difficult in the wind, we made it about half way across the lake and decided to explore the south shore instead. Found a population of what seems to be Viola langsdorfii with an impressive amount of variation in size and color. I collected a range of the plants and plan on sending them off for a second opinion.

Adjacent to the lake was some shallow to bedrock muskegy like vegetation and outcrops. Found a Primula cunefolia, Dodecatheon jeffreyi, Elliotia and Pinquincula. Kind of an odd mix for 800ft.

On the far side of the outcrops and muskeg was a tall sedge meadow (we would see alot of tall sedge meadow in the area). Blooming Petasites and Caltha leptosepala, young Veratrum, Frittilaria and Athryrium made up the bulk of the non-graminoids. It turned out that most of the bear sign we saw was in this area. We started around the lake through the moutain hemlock/spruce forest thinking that it might be alot better to walk around than paddle, but decided that leaving the boat would cause alot more hassles than retrieving it. The highlight of the forest was finding large patches of Nephroma on the trunks of a few Mountain hemlocks. It was green; which reminded me of N. arcticum, but the habitat was wrong. I still haven't quite decided about the identity of this lichen. Also noted many Streptopus streptopoides blooming.

Collected blooming Sibbaldia procumbens from the lake shore.

Paddling back to our side of the lake was a real chore, the head wind was not merciful. We couldn't stop paddling or we traveled backwards, much vocalization and swithing of sides was required to make the trip.

Made our first foray up the creek to look at the gravel bar vegetation (poppies, cerastium, oxytropis, dandelions) and set out the snap traps in the meadow in the afternoon in hopes of catching a vole.

It turns out, I'm not much of a trapper, not surprising. Probably should have read up a bit on the habits of voles or brought more traps ( had 11). The next day we found a more heavily used (at least that we could see) vole site on the first gravel bar. We did catch and lose something in that area, at least the trap was knawed).

The lower reaches of the creek had pretty interesting cut banks which gave an indication of the role geomorphology had in determining the vegetation type. We could see a band of peat over what looked like till and in an adjacent rill, we found a nice outcrop of fine silty sediments. Not clay, at least it didn't roll into much of a stable worm.

The vegetation in the the valley along the river was fens (tall sedge) and small patches of Spruce-Mountain hemlock/ blueberry forest . The dominance of tall fens seems to be due to the layer of basal till and the preponderance of small minerotrophic water ways running through the area. It was rather spring-like up there, so I couldn't identify all of the sedges etc, but did see Carex lenticularis, I suspect that there are probably a few more species eg. C. aquatilis. Dodecatheon jeffreyi and Rubus stellatus were in bloom.

I was oddly enthralled with the slumping peat banks along the river. Right across from this bank we found our first and only poppy in bloom. The rest of the plants were on the opposite shore and not quite blooming.

2009-07-14T08:23:00.006-08:00

Went to Blue Lake around noon to spend the night to be in position for a breeding bird survey on the 19th of June. After dropping the overnight gear at the gravel bar near the lichen rich alder/nettle avalanche track, we proceeded up the creek with the intention of at least getting around the barrier falls. We went a bit further.

Did stop to check on the lone poppy in the gravel bar and to "measure" the exceptionally large cedar along the trail. My reach is roughly 5ft 3", it seems like the tree must have a diameter of slightly less than 5ft.

The valley beyond was narrow U-shaped one with an interesting mixture (or maybe tangle) of different vegetation; alder thickets, youngish mature forest, boulder piles with subalpine like shrubs and a lovely patch of nettles. Seems like the driving force in succession in this valley is probably avalanches and mass wasting. Wind may have some role, but it seems secondary.

There was one slide not too far past the falls that seemed like it happened this last winter or spring, found some bones and a nice bit of hide of a mountain goat in the snow. Some of the hair is now in my freezer, hopefully, I'll get this spun this winter.

We made our way up the valley using the rather large remaining patches of snow allowed for easier going. Things were pretty springlike (plant wise) beyond the falls. Ranunculus coolyeae was blooming and many of the plants that would have made the walk more challenging were short or buried in snow. Did find an interesting Agrocybe in the alders.

Finally reached a point in the evening that it was time to turn back; it would be well worth a return. The valley felt like we were at the core of Baranof; steep valley walls, rugged topography and a raw kind of feeling. We could see muskegs much further up the valley and Mountain goats not really all that far above us.

Before we headed back I collected a bag or two of young nettles and fiddleheads. Many of the young nettles were purple.

2009-06-04T23:43:00.007-08:00

The warm temperatures and sun over the last 5 days has given things quite a boost. There are darners flying around the garden and a good variety of both domestic and wild flowers blooming in the garden. The crab apples (Malus fusca) are in full bloom on this end of the island.

I haven't spent much time in the garden this year. I've been too busy hiking on the weekends and going in an absurd number of directions. Fortunately the flowers are mostly perennials and seem to be still mostly outcompeting the rhizomatous grasses, chickweed and arabis. I franticly planted most of the vegetable garden before I went to Fairbanks on the 31st and added a few more seeds this evening. Now, there's garlic, horseradish, rhubarb, 3 kinds of onions, french sorrel, potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, joi choi, brocoli, basil, zucchini, and a variety of herbs growing or hopefully growing.

The blue and purle columbines (I think that the one in the photo is a flabellata cross) are beginning to hit there peak. I need to stop culling the hybrids that didn't work out. By "work out" I mean have flowers that are pleasing in appearance. There are a few that are down right ugly.

2009-06-04T23:23:00.003-08:00

Still catching up.

	May 8, 2009	May 9	May 10	May 11	May 12	May 13
Pelagic cormorant	3	1	2		2	1
Glaucous-winged gull	2	1			5
Marbled murrelet	1	4		3		3
Rhinoceros auklet		2	2	2		2
Belted Kingfisher	1
Bald Eagle			1			1
Raven			1		1
Crow			3
Weather	calm	calm, overcast			sunny, calm
cruise ships				2	1

	May 14	May 15	May 16	May 18	May 19	May 20
Pelagic cormorant		3
Common Merganser	3
Mew gull						1
Glaucous-winged gull	9	5		8	10	1
Marbled murrelet	5	8	2	2
Rhinoceros auklet		2
Bald Eagle					3
Raven					2
Crow	4				1
Weather	overcast		choppy		sunny
cruise ships	1			1	3	1

2009-05-29T10:24:00.003-08:00

	May 1	May 2	May 3	May 4	May 5	May 6	May 7
Common Loon						1
Barrow's Goldeneye	2	2
Common Merganser			2
Glaucous-winged gull	8	9	18			8	2
Gull spp		2			8
Marbled murrelet		2
Rhinoceros auklet							6
Bald Eagle					2
Crow		1			1	1	1
weather	sunny, calm				calm, sunny	calm, light rain
cruise ships							1

Note that on the 4th, I didn't see any birds on the water portion of the commute. In the evening of the 4th, I saw 3 Rhinoceros auklets, 5 Marbled murrelets, 1 Pacific loon and a Mew gull.

The trail to the dock was pretty bird rich during this week. There were Golden and White crowned, Fox and Song sparrows; scads of Rufous hummingbirds, Nuthatches, Pine siskins, Winter wrens, Robins, Varied and Hermit thrushes.
Orange crowned warblers were singing in the garden on the 4th of May.

A first for the garden (at least that I observed) was an Olive sided Flycatcher. I was sitng on the boardwalk in the sun, talking on the phone when I noticed an odd looking bird in my peripheral vision in a nearby hemlock. Fortunately, it stuck around for several minutes and I could see the dark vest-like pattern on the chest.
The Menziesia and Red alder leafed out on the island during this period.

2009-05-29T10:04:00.002-08:00

I seem to have gotten rather behind in the posts again...

	April 20	April 21	April 22	April 23	April 24	April 29	April 30
Common Loon						1
Pelagic Cormorant				1	3
Mallards	2	4	2
Barrow's goldeneye	2	4	4	2	2	4	2
Bufflehead			2			2
Common merganser	2	4	2	4	1		8
Mew gull		2			1
Herring Gull					1
Thayer's gull							1
Glaucous-winged gull	2			4	4	3	2
Gull spp	30	1		1		1	50
Bald Eagle							1
Raven						1
Shorebirds							60
weather/time	8am	low chop 8am		sunny 8am		sunny 8am

I went to Juneau for a few days so there is a gap in the data collection. The flock of shorebirds on the 30th were on a rock near Morne island. Unfortunatelly I didn't have my binoculars along, so I didn't get a good look at them. My best guess is a mixed flock of Turnstones and Surfbirds, but I'm not convinced.
On the 30th (it was sunny and warm) found Pippets, Townsends warblers, Robins, White-fronted geese, 4 semi-palmated plovers, and Sandhill at Totem Park. The crane did a fly over before it landed by the stream side for a short time then flew off toward Jamestown Bay. Fortunately it flew back, but then overflew the beach and headed toward town. It flew over a couple of other times, but didn't land. The call is pretty distinctive, hard to find words to describe the sound exactly. Patience was helpful in this case as the crane eventually returned and landed in the tide flats, so I got a good look.
Also in this period (based on my notebook) I seem to have collected alot of herring eggs for the garden and

2009-04-19T21:13:00.006-08:00

Took two hikes this weekend trying to prepare for the cross island expedition. On Saturday MB., Molly and I walked the Blue Lake road from the mill site to the lake. We had intended to walk up Harbor Mtn road, but road re-construction was a bit off putting. The purpose of this particular training hike was to test MB's back pack. She filled it with enough debris to bring the weight up to 30 lbs. Molly added 2 large cans of tomatoes to her

load. I stuck with the usual pack load of miscellaneous supplies.

Not too surprising, the lake was still frozen, I was kind of surprised that the boat we used as a commuter last summer was on the lake. I wonder how much space is between the ice and the water.

Picked up a couple of mosses from the cliffs on the way back. One looks like a Mnium (no sporophytes) the other is Pogonatum dentinum.

The sunny morning, inspired Molly and I to venture up the Verstovia trail on Sunday. The Early Blueberries were blooming near the beginning of the trail, and a few salmonberries had visible pink petals. The snow had retreated quite a bit since my last trip up here.

The photo is of roughly the same spot (about 850ft) that I took a photo a few weeks ago.

About 1500 ft, saw a Willow Ptarmigan on the trail ahead of us. It quickly moved above the trail, but not so far that we couldn't get a good look at the bird. It was in winter plumage, we could see the black on the tail and a faint bit of red above the eye. The red looked kind of like faint eye shadow. I don't think it was a Rock Ptarmigan, mostly based on the lack of a black eye strip. By the time I retrieved the camera from the backpack, it was gone.

Found Bear tracks about 2000 ft in the snow. They were undisturbed or maybe fresh enough that the claw marks were very crisp and clear.

We carried on to the clump of trees just below Picnic rock. There wasn't any wind to speak of and it was pretty warm sitting up there. The snow was compacted enough along ridge that the only use we had for our snow shoes that day was to use them to sit on while we took a break at the top.

Saw a large flock of Canada geese fly over just as we went into the trees on the way down.

I was kind of happy that I brought an old ski pole along. There were a couple of spots with very soft melting snow that were a bit unstable. Actually both of us gave up trying to stand on the way down the second cables. We just hung on the cable and slid, the turn was a bit dicey, but it was fun.

2009-04-19T09:01:00.005-08:00

Another sign of spring; this gardener is driven to gather herring eggs, sand and seaweed from the beach. Managed to collect 5 five-gallon buckets and 6 garbage bags (I re-used them), haul them up the hill and spread them in the garden.

Found two Alaska Blueberry bushes in bloom on the island. There are a few salmonberries with pink petals showing. The herbs seem to have greened up and grown very quickly the last couple of days. Found Streptopus amplexifolius (about 8 inches tall), Osmorrhiza, Heracleum and Aruncus near the dock. The commons seemed pretty warm today.

The walk through the commons to or from the dock has been rather slow this last week. The area is pretty busy with thrushes, sparrows and kinglets. On Tuesday evening finally heard, then saw a pair of Ruby Crowned kinglets, the next day there were 4 individuals. Typically there are about 10-12 Fox sparrows, many Robins, Varied Thrushes, Pine siskins, fewere Winter wrens, Chickadees, Nuthatches and Song sparrows along the path. There were 3 Brown creepers in the alders on Sunday.

The birds have thinned considerably on the commute. There are still plenty of waterfowl around, but seem to be near the creek outlets. Saw quite a few ducks (and gulls) at Totem Park on Friday; Teal, Pintails, Mallards, both species of Goldeneyes, Canada geese, Common Mergansers, and a pair of Gadwalls. HPR had a rather large raft of Scaup both days I gathered herring eggs.

	April 13	April 14	April 15	April 16	April 17	April 18	April 19
Double crested Cormorant						5
Pelagic Cormorant	1	2	1	1	1	2	1
Mallards	2		3	2		2
Common Merganser	2	4	2	2	1	2
Herring Gull	2				3
Thayer's Gull		1		2		2
Glaucous-winged Gull	8	10	1	19	8	4	2
Gull spp	8
Eagle	1						2
Raven	1
Weather	calm	calm	calm	SE chop	ripple	calm	ripple
Time	9:45	8	8	8	8	9:30	10

2009-04-13T21:41:00.004-08:00

Maybe it was the mass blooming of Early Blueberry on the island or seeing Skunk cabbage flowers but this weekend things started to feel a bit more spring-like. It was kind of overwhelming listening to all of the bird song on the way home from the airport at 5:30am. Winter wrens, song sparrows, varied thrush and robins were carrying on. This last week I lay in bed in the morning and listen to a song sparrow singing in the garden.

It was also pretty nice soaking up the sun in front of Steve and MB's garage door while the kids found the eggs we hid around the yard. We are going to have to borrow kids pretty soon. It was dry and sunny enough that we drew chalk pictures in the driveway and I had to wear sunglasses in order to keep my eyes open in the blazing sun.

Had a nice walk around the island after dinner this evening, there was still several patches of snow on the west side of the lake. The lake ice is continuous to within about 2ft of the shore. The visible water is a very murky looking blue-green color. Found 4 Fox sparrows in addition to the birds I already mentioned.

	April 6	April 7	April 8	April 9	April 10	April 12
Pelagic Cormorant	30	7	5
Mallards		2	6	4
Harelquin			2
Surf Scoter	3	7	3	1
White-winged Scoter	12		7
Barrow's Goldeneye	4
Bufflehead	1
Common merganser		15		9	5	2
Mew Gull	1	1				4
Herring Gull				1
Glaucous-winged Gull	1	10	1	6	4	8
Gull spp				4	10
Bald Eagle	2			1		1
Crow						7
Weather	calm	se choplet	calm	calm	calm	calm
Time	8	8	8	8	8	11

There was Herring spawn in Crescent bay on Friday the 10th.

2009-04-12T22:27:00.008-08:00

It is difficult to see, but the photo is of Blue Lake from a very snowy hill above Beaver lake. Marybeth, Molly, Stacy, Sarah Jones and I hiked a up and over sort of loop in the Herring cove/ Beaver lake area. They called it the "humphalumps" or somthing like that. We started from the road about a 1/4 mile or so from the gate and climbed a rather steep slope to the hills. There was enough snow on the top of the rolling hills to form mini cornices with rippled overhanging wedges on the edges of what must be underlying rock. The snow shoes were more than helpful, the one spot that MB and I took ours off in the trees and tested the snow depth with our bodies (mid thigh) was rather slow going.

Collected a Phellinus on Mountain hemlock not too far below the slope break near the top. Mtn hemlock was pretty abundant beginning around 800 ft. Also collected a bit of yellow snow from under the tree branches. Haven't looked at all of it yet, but found numerous fragments of bryophytes and a few lichens.

Another sea lion and whale rich week in Crescent bay and Sitka Sound.

	March 30	March 31	April 1	April 2	April 3	April 4	April 5
Pelagic Cormorant		1	2	1	5	4	30
Great Blueheron	1
Mallard
Harlequin		2		3
Surf Scoter	8	11	3	7			3
White-wingedScoter							12
Barrow'sGoldeneye	4					6	4
Bufflehead							1
Commonmerganser		5	14		15
Mew gull	4	2	3	1	4	1	1
Herring Gull				10	1	1
Thayer's Gull						1
Glaucous-wingedGull	10	8	2	30	15	11	1
Gull spp	100	30			20
Marbled murrelet		2	1
Song Sparrow	1
Kingfisher	1
Bald Eagle	1				1		2
Weather	west chop	calm,new snow		snowing, calm	sunny, calm	southeast chop	calm
Time	8am	8am	8am	8am	8am	9	9:30

2009-03-29T20:48:00.002-08:00

This week commutes should have a couple of rows for marine mammals. Two mornings (3/23 and 3/24) there were humpback whales in Crescent bay near Turning Island. Driving home on the 24th there were several whales breaching off Whale Park. Just happened to notice one huge splash, so stopped and watched for a short time. Through Wednesday, there were also small groups of sea lions in Crescent bay. The marine mammals seem to have disappeared from the bay on Friday and Saturday.
It was spring break, so I made a few additional trips to get Ian to track practice. Most afternoons and evenings, I saw a blue heron near the Galankin dock, a pair of marbled murrelets and a Horned grebe near the Galankin dock. Did watch a male kingfisher swoop from the tourist ramp under the pier, into the water and fly up on the ladder down from the pier.

	3/23	3/24	3/25	3/26	3/27	3/28
Horned Grebe		1				1
Pelagic Cormorant	2	2	2	2	2	3
Double-crested Cormorant						1
Mallards	2	2	3	2		4
Surf Scoter	5	7	5	6	15	11
Barrow's Goldeneye	6					4
Bufflehead						1
Common Merganser	8		14	5	10	8
Mew Gull		6			4
Thayer's Gull		1		1		1
Glaucous-winged gull	10	8		3	8
Gull spp		4			20	6
Common Murre	1					5
Marbled Murrelet						5
Bald Eagle				1
Raven	1
Weather		Snow, west steep chop	ripples	snow, se small chop		sunny, calmish
time	8am	8am	8am	8am	8am	9:30

Still have red polls on the island, as well as nuthatches. I'm kind of hopeful that the nuthatches will stick around this summer.

2009-03-27T20:02:00.008-08:00

Found the first Early Blueberry (Vacciniium ovalifolium) blooming the island this evening. There were two bushes with open flowers about 20 ft off the trail on Litman's lot just above the rock hill. I suspect the flowers were open this morning, but I didn't notice them as I walked, must have had my head down while trudging to town. It was snowing and blowing hard westerly this morning, the kind of weather that doesn't favor looking around much.

Also heard two song sparrows singing, one in an alder near the ramp at UAS, the other close to the bridge. Still haven't heard one on the island.

Hiked up Verstovia to the second cables on Saturday after dance class, hopefully the first of the weekly trips up I intend to take this spring. Plenty of snow from the trail head upward. There were a few partially clear spots of trail near the beginning, and a spot of quite vibrant green in a perennial seep, but mostly the world was white. There were red polls, pine siskins, crossbills and juncos near the salmonberry thicket at the beginning of the trail. Surprised a deer on the way down in the same spot. The photo was taken looking up the trail not too far beyond the first cable around 700ft (?). Next time I'll take my altimeter and a pole to measure the snow.

2009-03-24T21:35:00.007-08:00

Redpolls showed up at the feeder about a week ago. Don't recall seeing them very often at the feeder (if at all).

I've seen up to 6 of them at a time. They aren't as agressive as the Pine siskins, but can hold there own. Siskins and Redpolls did eat side by side more often than the other species. When the siskins are around, the nuthatches tend to fly in grab a seed and fly off. They also seem to favor the food that falls to the deck. Lately, they are climbing the uprights on the deck rail.

Also seeing Redpolls and siskins on the trail to the dock, mostly in the alders near the lake.

2009-03-22T09:57:00.003-08:00

Not sure why I didn't write down the count for the 12th, but alas I didn't

	March 9	March 10	March11
Horned Grebe	1
Mallard	5		2
Surf Scoter		6
Barrow's Goldeneye			9
Mew Gull	6	2
Herring Gull		1
Glaucous-winged Gull	7	8	16
Gull spp	5
Bald Eagle	1		2
Raven		1
Crow			3
Weather	calm, cold ice near skiff	se chop, snow	se chop, snow
time	8	8	8

This table should get me up to date with the counts

	March 16	March 17	March 18	March 19	March 20	March 21
Pelagic Cormorant	2	2	4	2
Mallard			2		6	2
Harlequin			3
Long-tailed Duck				2	2	1
Surf Scoter	9	3	4	12	5	7
Barrow's Goldeneye	8	4	1	5
Common Merganser	4	5				1
Mew Gull		1			9	3
Herring Gull				1	1
Glaucous-winged Gull	1	4	1	1	3	4
Gull spp			2	2	4	6
Marbled Murrelet			2		2
Bald Eagle	3				4
Raven		1
Weather	choppy, overcast	se chop, overcast	calm	snow	chop	minor chop sunny
Time	1pm	8am	8am	8am	8am	7:30am

The Harlequins and the first pair of murrelets were between Litman's dock and the A-frame. Subsequently I've seen murrelets on the regular commute route.

2009-03-22T08:21:00.003-08:00

More commute catch-up

	Feb. 24	Feb 25	Feb 26
Pelagic Cormornat	1	1	1
Mallards	2	2	2
Long tail Duck			4
Surf Scoter	111	5
Barrow's Goldeneye			3
Bufflehead	2
Common Merganser		2
Glaucous-winged Gull		1	8
Gull spp	3		2
Weather	calm, sunny	calm, sunny	calm, overcast
Time	8am	8am	8am

February and March have a number of missing days because of travel to Juneau and Fairbanks.

	March 3	March 4	March 5	March 6	March 7	March 8
Common Loon		1
Horned Grebe					1
Double-crested Cormorant					1
Pelagic Cormorant	1		1	3	1
Great Blue Heron		1
Mallards	2	2			4	2
Surf Scoter	4	6	8	12	4	11
Common Goldeneye						1
Barrow's Goldeneye	6		6		5	3
Bufflehead				1		2
Common Merganser	6		4			4
Mew Gull		1		1
Thayers Gull		2
Glaucous-winged Gull	10	1	4	2	1	1
Gull spp			3			1
Common Murre					1
Raven						1
Crow						1
Weather	calm	calm, sunny, fresh snow	calm	choppy, rain	calm, sunny, ice by skiff	calm
Time	8:15	7:15	8:15	8:15	8:30	9:30

getting closer to being caught up...

2009-03-21T08:14:00.003-08:00

It is officially spring both by the calendar and according to at least one bird. Walking to the dock this morning I heard a Winter wren sing, not once but twice. It was near the outlet of the lake in the alders so I couldn't see it, but it was quite audible. Funny that yesterday in the same spot I thought a heard a very half hearted and disorganized bit of sound that seemed like it might be a winter wren, but I decided I was conjuring the sounds out some random Pine siskin chatter. Heard a soft call of a Varied thrush on Thursday.

The herring fleet is gathering in Sitka (2 hour notice begins on Sunday) and the gull and sea lion activity seems to be picking up. Saw the first sea lion for quite a few months in Crescent harbor Monday evening. I suspect it was interested in the baiting activity of the longliners.

There is alot of snow on the ground. On Galankin there is 4-6 inches of snow in some places and up Indian river on Thursday I measured 1ft 10 inches in the west valley near the big tree and about 3 ft in the muskeg below the Middle Sister.
The early blueberry buds are slowly swelling, checked the shrub that typically blooms first on the island, but it doesn't look like it will be flowering for a couple of weeks.

On a completely different subject, I've been walking home at night for the last several months mostly without using my headlamp. Mostly decided to try it to see how difficult it was to do after all, I never know when I'll forget my headlamp or the battery will die. The trail home is mostly pretty easy. For the first 1/8 of a mile or so the path from the dock goes through a very flat and wide open area where the trail is wide enough for a four wheeler (or a truck) with large Red alders and large willows. The only issues here can be giant puddles, not much of a challenge for night walking. The path then goes up a small hill and proceeds along the lake. The path narrows and has dense second growth on the south side and large red alders on the other. It is still pretty easy to see here and the trail surface is pretty smooth. There are a couple of tripping hazards (large roots or some sort of woody debris) in the trail where it levels off, but the alders (now mostly Sitka alders) let in alot of light and the roots are pretty easy to avoid (they don't seem to move much). The first section of boardwalk is in this area. Walking on it is kind of a home free feeling, don't have to think much. This is however a short lived feeling, as the most challenging part of the trail is not too far past this spot. The path starts winding down through a very dense second stand of second growth trees on one side and a very dense stand of desperate shrubs and conifers on the other side. South of this section is older forest. The over all effect is very dark. In fact it is extremely dark for many feet of trail that has narrowed to a foot path, is going down hill and has several large roots that at first seemed a bit intimidating. So it took me a couple of times before I was willing to navigate this part of the trail without at least using my cell phone (there is alot less light from my phone than my headlamp). The cell phone light didn't seem to set back my night vision quite as badly as the headlamp. A full moon or snow gives enough light that this section seems fine without light, but in the dark of the moon without snow, it is impressively dark. It was easy to give in and turn on the light and I still use a light when I'm carrying alot of stuff or am really tired. I slowly gained some confidence was just walking slow, it is pretty easy to feel the ground and to remember the location of the roots. It doesn't seem that I actually see more, but I can navigate with what little I can see (nothing on the ground). I should say that if I stand at the top of the dark section for a few minutes and let my eyes adjust (go rods!) I can see a bit more.
At the bottom of this section is level boardwalk, very nice walking, although I did get cocky one dark night and walk off the edge. This is still relatively dark with dense shrubs (old growth Menziesia) with a few large conifers. On some nights all I can see is the vague outline of the shrubs. On the darkest nights it looks very strange and doesn't take much imagination at all to conjure up all sorts of strange images out of the darkness. There are a few more places with log faces or gravel as a trail surface, but mostly it is boardwalk through open older forest to the house so it pretty straight forward. I'm not sure that my night vision has really improved by this exercise, but I feel like my confidence in my ability to make use of what I can see (and of course my memory) to navigate has improved.

2009-03-10T22:27:00.002-08:00

Was in Juneau on the 18th and 19th of February to attend a day of interesting talks hosted by the Tongass Conservation plan consortium. The public day was proceeded by 2 days of discussion of 8 invited papers on various topics on the Tongass. The papers should be available on the Audobon website www.audubonalaska.org at some point, but nothing has appeared yet. Gathered a few ideas from the speakers (particularly P. Alaback) . One idea that wasn't exactly new to me, but I seem to have forgotten the language to describe it. In a nutshell the idea the a moderate level of disturbance leads to the highest diversity. It is one of those things that when someone points it out seems like an obvious sort of thing, but being reminded of it was useful. The herb rich gravel bars, alpine and upper estuary meadows around here seem to fit this model. I guess I'm thinking that disturbance can include browse, salt inundation, flood, snow creep, wind etc.
Also talked to Mary Willson about yellow beaks on winter dippers. Apparently some adult birds dark bills turn yellow or yellowish in the winter. She said that they put a bit of effort into trying to figure out a pattern to this, but were convinced that they understood why a given bird exhibited the color change.

Okay, the highlight of the bird week was the rather tame swans in Crescent Harbor. There were 2 juveniles and 2 adults. The first day, they flew low over the skiff, landed not too far astern and followed the boat for a few moments.

	February 16	February 17	February 20	February 21	February 22
Trumpeter Swan		4	4
Horned Grebe		1
Pelagic Cormorant	2			2	2
Great Blue Heron	1			1	1
Mallards	7	2		1	2
Long-tail duck	5	5	1
Surf Scoter			5
White-winged Scoter				6
Barrow's Goldeneye		2			7
Bufflehead					9
Common Merganser	4	9	3	3	2
Glaucous-winged Gull		2		1	2
Common Murre				1
Marbled Murrelet		1
Belted Kingfisher					1
Bald Eagle					1
Weather		Calm, pink sunrise	Calm	slight chop	east wind
Time	8am	8am	8am	2pm	4:30pm

2009-02-14T19:26:00.006-09:00

3/10 This orphan entry has been sitting around for a few weeks waiting to be edited and added to. At this point, I'll just call it done.

Snowed Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday. From Wednesday through Saturday, the temperature dropped and the sun appeared. Found a few nice basking spots between tasks. On the 12th, 13th and 14th the sea ice extended from near the Galankin dock to mid channel in Crescent Bay.

The snow has a scattering of seed from the spruce, alder and hemlock trees.

	February 9	February 10	February 11	February 12	February 13	February 14
Double Crested Cormorant		1	1	1
Pelagic Cormorant	1	1	4	5	2
Great Blue Heron		1			1	1
Mallards			4	4	3	3
Long-tailed Duck		5		4	1	2
Surf Scoter	5	10	5	5	2
White-winged Scoter		7
Barrow's Goldeneye	1			2	1	8
Bufflehead						6
Common Merganser	4	2	1		2	4
Red Breasted Merganser			1
Mew Gull	2	1				2
Glaucous-winged Gull	1	1	1	1	1	4
Gull spp		1	4
Common Murre		1
weather	slight chop	slight chop	sunny, calm	calm cold, ice	calm clear, ice	calm, clear, ice
time	8:15	8:15	8:15	8:15	8:15	9:30

2009-02-09T07:08:00.007-09:00

I'm trying to stay a bit more caught up with the data I"ve collected. I might start doing a monthly frequency summary instead of the weekly reports. This last week besides the influx of siskins, there were a few days of White-winged scoters. I'm pretty sure that they usually can be found on the west side of Galankin and Breast islands, perhaps the westerlies drove them in. Harlequins finally made an appearance in the count, I had been wondering when I would see them on the commute, they are around town and I've seen them in previous years between the island and town, but wasn't sure when.

The weather was not inspiring this past week. Buckets of rain (6.3 inches), the flu and deadlines kept me on task or at least in the office.

	2/2/2009	2/3/2009	2/4/2009	2/5/2009	2/6/2009	2/7/2009
Pacific Loon						1
Pelagic cormorant	4	3	2	5	4	5
Great Blue Heron		1		1
Harlequin				2		3
Long-tail Duck	3				6
Surf Scoter	5		1	7	5
White-winged Scoter	3		5	4
Barrow's Goldeneye		3	3	2
Bufflehead	6					4
Common merganser	8	3
Mew Gull			16		6
Glaucous-winged gull	2	1	8	1	1
Gull spp		4
Raven	2	2	1
Crow	1
Pine Siskin			3
weather	west swell, no chop		calm	snowing, calm	raining, west swell no chop	raining hard,se chop, windy

2009-02-08T20:19:00.003-09:00

Siskins seem to be more abundant around town and at my feeder this last week or so. At least I've seen many more of them around the island. This last week there were siskins along the trail every day regardless of the weather. Today when I walked around the lake, it seemed like there was a siskin or two every few yards. No, I don't think I was herding the same two around the trail.

The siskins are not what I would call wary either on the trail or at the feeder. I haven't had them eat out of my hand yet, but they let me get pretty close. I can have my hand on the rail while they feed about a foot away on the same rail. The nuthatches and chickadees at the feeder are also pretty comfortable with me, but the juncos are not. They are okay with me on the deck, but not too close.

Although the siskins aren't too worried about me, they do seem to be pretty aggressive toward their fellow birds. The tussles were less frequent when there were 6 siskins at the feeder, but when the number got up to 12 in the late afternoon, the aggression increased. They flew at each other in kind of a face to face aerial combat or crouching with wings slightly spread, with bills open. Birds knocked other birds off the perches, the deck and the suet feeder.

The nuthatches still visited the feeder or rail, but flewn in, grabbed a seed and flew off. The chickadees pretty much adopted the same strategy, but seemed a bit more persistant at trying to get at the feeder. When there was only one siskin at the feeder, a chickadee was tolerated at the adjacent suet feeder, but not at the same feeder. The juncos seemed a bit more able and willing to hold their own .

2009-02-08T20:07:00.003-09:00

	1/26/2009	1/27/2009	1/28/2009	1/29/2009	1/30/2009
Horned Grebe					1
Pelagic Cormorant		1	1	2	3
Great Blue Heron			1
Long-tail Duck		2	2
Surf Scoter		5		1	2
Barrow's Goldeneye	5	1		7	17
Common Merganser		6
Mew Gull		3		2
Glaucous-winged Gull		6	3	3	2
Gull spp	5		5	4	3
Common Murre					1
Bald Eagle		`1	3
Raven				2	2
Crow		1
Weather	snowing hard, windy	slight chop	calm	raining	westerly, rough
Time	8:15	8:15	8:15	8:15	8:15

My note taking needs a bit of work, the weather comments are a bit on the weak side and it seems that I managed to misplace the count from the 31st. It was snowing on Saturday and after dance class, I walked up the Indian River trail a bit past the first bridge. It was snowing hard enough, that I couldn't see the any of the peaks, nor did I see many birds. The muskeg was nice walking, the underlying snow hadn't melted, but compressed into a nice hard layer beneath the 3-4 inches of new soft snow.

2009-02-01T09:41:00.004-09:00

This was the week of recurring boat issues, which were hopefully resolved by a serious infusion of cash. New wiring, running light, lower unit oil, throttle cables for the aluminum boat and new throttle cables for the bayliner. Given the fun I was having with boats, it is kind of a wonder that any birds were counted.

The 19th , 20th and 22nd had intensely beautiful sunrises. On the 22nd there was pan ice in Crescent Harbor.
Noticed a male Hooded Merganser on Swan Lake on the 21st in the small area of open water near the 4-way stop.

	1/19/2009	1/20/2009	1/21/2009	1/22/2009	1/23/2009	1/24/2009
Common Loon		1
Pacific Loon			1
Pelagic Cormorant		5		2	1	6
Long-tail Duck		1	7	2	2	2
Surf Scoter	1	1		2
Barrow's Goldeneye	8			23	3	17
Bufflehead						3
Common Merganser	9	8	2	6	7	9
Mew Gull	1
Glaucous-winged Gull	1	1	1	1		3
Gull spp	4		4		4
Bald Eagle				1
Raven				2
Weather	calm, clear	calm	calm, raining	calm, clear	windy, light snow	calm, overcast
Time		9:15	8:15	8:15	8:15	8:30

2009-02-01T09:13:00.003-09:00

Still catching up. Saving a months' worth of data for entry is really not the best idea.

	1/12/2009	1/13/2009	1/14/2009	1/15/2009	1/16/2009	1/17/2009
Horned Grebe						1
Double-crested Cormorant						2
Pelagic Cormorant	1		4	4	4	1
Blue Heron					1
Mallard					3
Scaup sp.			3
Harlequin	3
Long-tail Duck					2
Surf Scoter	7					10
Barrow's Goldeneye				21	2
Bufflehead						4
Common Merganser			5	5	20
Mew Gull	1
Thayer's Gull				1
Glaucous-winged Gull	3	2	4	5	2
Gull spp.	2
Common Murre						1
Crow				10		4
Weather	rough, raining	calm, raining hard		grey, calm	clear, calm	clear, calm
Time	8:15	8	8:15	8:15		8:45

The morning of the 17th was the first of several intensely colorful sunrises.

2009-02-01T09:10:00.002-09:00

	1/1/2009	1/2/2009	1/3/2009	1/5/2009	1/6/2009
Common Loon	1		1
Pacific Loon	4			2
Pelagic Cormorant	3	2	6	1	4
Great Blue Heron			1
Long-tailed Duck	2		3	1
Surf Scoter			16	12	12
White-winged Scoter			5
Common Goldeneye	3
Barrow's Goldeneye	22	27	21	21	19
Bufflehead	6
Common Merganser	8		8	16	12
Red-breasted Merganser	3
Mew Gull					1
Glaucous winged gull	1		2	1	2
Gull spp					3
Common Murre				1
Marbled Murrelet			2
Bald Eagle	1		1		1
Song Sparrow			1
Weather etc	Cold, sunny, calm, Noonish	Snowing hard, 3:30	snowing, 1:30	9:30, chop	8am, calm

The next set of observations

	1/8/2009	1/9/2009	1/10/2009
Loon sp.		1
Pelagic Cormorant	3	3	4
Harlequin		2
Long-tailed Duck		1	1
Surf Scoter	12	7	4
Barrow's Goldeneye	3		16
Common Merganser	3	17	6
Mew Gull			5
Glaucous-winged Gull		3	7
Gull spp.	6
Marbled Murrelet		1
Weather	snowing hard	rough, chop and swell	calm
Time	8am	9:30	8am

Walking home through the commons on the 10th saw a flock of redpolls. At least they sure looked like redpolls in the waning light.

2009-01-29T21:27:00.009-09:00

Working in my office I am rather insulated from the weather. Can't hear the wind or rain or see the sun, this is a long way to say that there isn't a window. Not to complain, it is a very comfortable closet and I don't get distracted by an external view.

I knew it wet (total rain fall was 3.07 inches ), I had been outside a few times during the day, but the wind didn't start in any kind of serious way until after I had settled in my office for the evening.
Leaving the dock was a bit of a problem, actually it wasn't leaving the dock, but getting turned around by the wind in the space between dock and rocks. There isn't alot of room there. I was thinking about just backing out, but decided that I could work my way around.

The wind hadn't built any waves to speak of, but there were white caps. The waves were low, almost flattened by the strong southeasterly wind. I thought that the wave height might increase as I went out toward Morne Island, so I went around the west of Breast island, what I call the Lighthouse way. I was also a bit concerned about plowing right into such a strong wind., I would need to go at a higher speed than I was comfortable with in the dark, as it was I had a tough time keeping the bow down so that the wind couldn't push it around. I had to slow down a number of times as the bow was getting turned by the gusts.
Had to turn the flood light off because it was raining so hard the light was just bouncing around obscruing everything outside the blur of light. I couldn't see the islands that I was steering around until I turned off the light.
Steering was a very active job, particularly once around Breast island. Keeping a given direction was a bit of a challenge and I was very happy that the engine cooperated. It was easy to imagine that the skiff would end up at the airport or on a beach at Kruzof in a very short time without power.

Getting into the stall at the dock was kind of a challenge, in fact slowing down enough to feel comfortable going between the dock and rock, also meant that the skiff was pushed closer to the rock than was comfortable. Decided after the second try to tie up at a spot that the wind would work with me rather than against me. Tied up the rather heavy fiberglass double kayak to the bull rail. Apparently the kayak isn't heavy enough to keep it from getting scooted across the dock.

There weren't many branches on the trail and I didn't feel compelled to run through the woods. I did hear one large crack, I assume that it was a branch.
At home the windows were flexing during the big gusts and there was a good breeze blowing through the one window that was redone in a less than adequate fashion.

The anemometer at home measured the following gusts: 52 mph 8:45 pm, 57 mph 9:25pm and
67 mph gust at 10pm. The airport measured a gust of 62mph. Looks like there were 3 gusts of similar energy between 10 and 11pm. I found a summary of the weather recorded at the airport. Yesterday's weather
On the walk to the dock this morning found 3 small (up to 16 inches dbh) dead trees across the trail. One of the trees was pretty close to where I heard the cracking sound last night.

2009-01-18T10:23:00.002-09:00

	12/23/2008	12/24/2008	12/26/2008	12/27/2008	12/30/2008
Double Crested Cormrant		1			1
Pelagic Cormorant		2		1
Great Blue Heron			1
Mallard		3
Long-Tail Duck		3			4
Surf Scoter			23	7	8
White-winged Scoter		7
Barrow's Goldeneye	8	26	1		6
Bufflehead					7
Common Merganser				2
Mew Gull		2		1	6
Glaucous-winged Gull			3	2	2
Gull spp	2		6
Marbled Murrelet		10		1
Belted Kingfisher		1
Song Sparrow				1
Bald Eagle			3		2
Raven			2		1
weather etc	dark (8am), snowing hard	calm, west swell, 1pm	calm, 3pm	calm, 11am, some snow	very rough

The count on the 24th was a on a variation of the regular route. I went around the west side of Breast island (found the White-winged scoters) then dropped Deirdre off at the Litman's dock before returning to the main dock. The 10 marbled murrelets were on the east side of Galankin near Katz island.

2009-01-08T18:59:00.007-09:00

january 1

Deirdre and I hiked from Herring Cove to Beaver Lake on January 1st. It was sunny and rather cold (max temperture 25F), and we had a late start so didn't often stop walking to look around. The trail was pretty quiet in terms of both people and birds. Did hear kinglets and chickadees in the canopy and crossed paths with two other groups of people. The trail was a bit icy in places, but most of it was crunchy snow which made walking relatively easy.
Picked up a lichen from one of the alders along the trail near the avalanche area. It is greyish green with soredia scattered over the surface. The lower surface isn't uniform in texture, there are areas without a lower cortex, a few rhizines and some tomentum. The lichen greens up nicely when wet. I haven't really taken the time to identify it with any degree of confidence yet.

We walked up to the lake and turned around, neither of us were too interested in walking the road back to the car. We had seen one dipper in the small creek at the beginning of the trail on the way up the trail. Didn't stop to look at it closely, just noticed it was there. On the way back down Deirdre and I noticed the ice on the small cascade, went to take a closer look and aroused 2 dippers. There was much scolding and both flew a short distance away. I did manage to get a photo. Not a brillant one, but what is more noticable in the larger version of this photo, is the yellow beak. I wouldn't have noticed the color of the beak without having taken the photo, so I guess it might be worthwhile hauling a camera around.

The yellow beak is characteristic of juvenile birds. Sibley 's Guide to the birds of North America says that the young of the year birds acquire adult characteristics by fall, if this is true for this area, this bird is woefully behind.

I haven't been able to find much more information about bill color in dippers, so well have to do so more careful observing. I really don't know if this bird was unusual or not.

I have looked at dippers once or twice on Indian River since the 1st.

Saw two dippers in the river. One with a dark beak was about 10ft from the first bridge. The other had a very yellow beak and was feeding in the flats where I have often found dippers.

2009-01-08T18:57:00.007-09:00

Deirdre and I were thinking about making a trip to Indian River falls over Christmas break, we didn't get quite that far, but had a nice walk up past the first bridge and on to the muskeg. It was snowing most of the time, we briefly saw the Middle Sister from the muskeg before it disappeared in a cloud of white.
Based on boot depth estimates, the snow depth in the muskeg was about 8 inches , in the riparian area about 3 inches and in the transition scrub between muskeg and forest the depth varied from 3 to 5 inches.

We were pleasantly chatty, so probably missed some birds on our way; we did see Winter wrens, Song sparrows, Varied Thrush, Juncos and 2 Dippers. One dipper was just above the first bridge.

The snow seems to encourage alot of birds to congregate below the deck in the tangle of wild Oregon crab apple, Elderberry and Devil's club that grows below. There must be a reliable or substantial amount of seeds both from the feeder on the deck and the plants. The juncos and chickadees that visit the feeder also hang out down below. There are ususally Song sparrows scratching up food down there. Went down to look more carefully at who might be there (after being prompted by the bird list) and found a few Fox sparrows. I tend to go by the yellow bill, but their color is more evenly warm brown. Found 4 more Fox sparrows around the island, one pair by the lake and the other by the A-frame.

2008-12-25T15:48:00.007-09:00

Christmas morning about 11am took the kayaks out for a family paddle. Time constraints and approaching weather required a choice between kayaking and ice skating. Glad that kayaking won out, it had been a long time since I went for a paddle. The weather was sunny and not too cold (34). The water was pretty calm, there was a west swell which was small enough that it didn't interfere with using the binoculars. Deirdre brought her camera and didn't seem to have too much trouble keeping the horizon. She graciously provided the photos.

We started from the Galankin Dock and went west around Rockwell lighthouse. A pretty large flock of Common mergansers (25), 7 mallards , one Common loon and most of the Surf Scoters (8) were between the dock and the lighthouse. Two sea otters were just southwest of Rockwell island. They let us come relatively close for otters (about 50ft or so). Continued on to Ferebee Rock (I call it Cormorant rock), about 54 or so Pelagic cormorants took off as soon as we headed that way. They are impressively sensitive to approach. I'll count myself vaguely stealthy when they let me get close. Continued on around Galankin inside of Sheep island. A Sharp-shinned hawk was on the north point of the island, it flew to a tree on Galankin and unfortunately I lost sight of it. Also saw a Horned Grebe on the west side of the island.

There were 3 eagles (2 mature) in the trees on the west side of my lot. The Crows that have discovered the deck feeders were down on the rocks below the house (fresh water? mussels?). On the way to the Twins, found another sea otter close to the southern most Gillmore island. By the pass between the two islands (by Michelle and Roland's dock) found a few more Surf Scoters (4)and Harlequins. On the far side found Buffleheads (6) and a couple of Common Mergansers.

Went through the Gillmore islands back to the main interisland basin then Ian and I took a peak between Kutkan and Breast islands before returning to the Galankin dock. Found a few more Harlequins on the north side. The only alcids (2 Marbled murrelets) seen were on the return to the dock.

I lost track of the number of gulls; did notice several Mew and Glaucous-winged and one Thayers gull.

Made a first attempt to record a trip using Google Earth, the result is a little clumsy.

Also seem to have been cooking alot the last few days; one thing turned out especially good for a recipe-less creation. In hope of making a successful seafood pie again some time, I'll include the recipe here. Maybe I'll find this one.

Leftover fish pie recipe:

white sauce (1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup flour, 2 cups milk (mixed non fat and half and half), 1ts salt. Added an unknown amount of tabasco sauce and lemon juice . Sauted 4 chopped stalks of celery and a purple onion until relatively translucent. Filled a 14 inch diameter pan with the cooked vegetables, leftover coho, scallops and shrimp. Sprinkled about an ounce of smoked blue cheese over the filling, then poured the sauce over. It didn't look quite moist enough, so added some cream until it looked evenly moist.

The top crust was a pile of mashed potatoes. Just before putting in the oven, Deirdre brushed it with egg yolk (beaten). Baked it at 350 for 40 minutes.

The deer in the greenhouse made it to the freezer yesterday, it yielded roughly 30 lbs of meat. The kitchen scale is pretty marginal, so I'm not sure how reliable that number really is. Cut 4 roasts out of the hind legs; the front legs, ribs and everything else except the backstrap went into burger. The kitchen aid grinder was rather hot by the time the process was complete. Kept the rib meat burger seperate, I'm kind of curious how it compares with the rest of the meat as it has a bit more fat included in the grind. If the second island deer is harvested, I'll make some sausage and maybe try to make jerky as well.

Snow, hail, thunder and lightening last night.

2008-12-22T10:13:00.007-09:00

The cold, clear weather has been around for most of the last week. The morning of the 16th was rainy, but it was sunny by noon.

There is still a very thin crust of snow and frost and a nice thick layer of ice on the trails. The Rhododendron leaves are curled up against the cold, also noticed that the Cornus canadensis looks a bit on the dry side. The shinier wintergreen herbs don't look to be as vulnerable to the cold and dry.

The last few nights, we had a nice view of Venus in the west and even luckier, we've seen Mercury just after sunset on the commute to the island.

I was trying to get a photo of where the sun came up and where is sits at noon on the Solstice. I wasn't terribly successful, the photos were definately on the bizarre side. The best description that I have of where the sun comes up is east of the Pyramids, near Deep Inlet over a low moutain locally (perhaps ) called Eureka Mtn at about 9:30am. At noon the sun was just to the west of the Pyramid mtn and not too far above the peak.

The photo of Cross Mountain was taken from the upstairs deck. Didn't have much to do with sunrise or noon, but the mountains have been rather beautiful in the snow and sun.

Celebrated the solstice by cutting 5 Sitka spruce for the auditorium. 3 were in the garden and would eventually block the sun getting to the vegetables. They had to go sooner or later and at least at this point they were relatively easy to move around, as the tallest was about 12ft. The neighborhood had a skating party and bonfire at the Galankin lake in the evening. The stars were out and the ice was very smooth. Most were skating with headlamps which looked pretty interesting gliding around the ice in the very dark night. I turned mine off a couple of times once I was pretty sure that the ice was smooth. Interesting, but a bit on the scary side.

There were 2 deer on the slope north of the green house when I walked home the other night. They were starting to walk off when I noticed them and stopped. I tried the low whistle, they stopped and listened, then resumed eating after a few minutes. One is now in the greenhouse waiting to be butchered. It had already shed its antlers which seems a bit early, but I guess I don't really know when is normal.

The trail count of birds remains pretty spotty, I did hear and eventually see a Brown creeper on the 20th and there was a robin in the garden on the 21st.

	12/15/08	12/16/08	12/17/08	12/18/08	12/19/08	12/20/08	12/21/08
Pelagic Cormorant	3		5	4	1	4	2
Scaup				2
Long-tailed duck			3
Surf Scoter	12	3	4	3	1	20	15
Barrow's Goldeneye	3		11	7	1	35	23
Bufflehead						10
Common Merganser			12	3	5		3
Thayer's Gull	1						1
Glaucous-winged gull	2	2	3	2	4		2
Gulls	5		6			2
Common Murre			1
Kingfisher						1
Bald Eagle		1	1			2
time	8am	8am	8am	8am	8am	2pm	10:30am
weather	calm, cold, isolated skim ice	calm, raining	calm, cold	calm, cold	ice, calm	small waves, cold	small waves, cold

2008-12-14T17:06:00.007-09:00

It's been rather nice the last few days, sunny and cold enough to keep the small amount of snow from melting. I'm wearing the giant, calf length coat, two pairs of gloves and a scarf across my face for the commute. It takes me a bit of time to acclimate.

If I remember right the snow fell on Wednesday and Thursday. The bayliner's fuel lines froze on Friday, that skiff seems to succumb every winter, fortunately the aluminum skiff remains functional. It took a good 10 minutes to untie the boat on Friday because of frozen lines. Swan lake was still open on Friday (finally got a good look at the Canvasback), by Sunday morning only a bit of open water remained. There was a bit of thin ice at the harbor mouth on Saturday.
The full moon was pretty spectacular, both at night rising over the Sisters or Verstovia (depending on my location) and setting in the morning. It set over what I assume is a peak on the north end of Kruzof, or maybe toward Partofshikof island. I thought that the moon seemed a bit larger than normal that morning, presumably it looked on the cinematic side because of not only being full, but also at perigee (221,560 miles).

The fungi are frozen. The only creature I collected this week was a Xylaria from a Sitka alder. Haven't dissected it yet for spores, some seem flat and divided like hypoxylon others were round like something different.

This week I left the house a bit earlier and the slightly darker conditions added a bit of a challenge to identifying gulls, so I had to make use of the gull spp category.

Common Loon	12/8/08 8am	12/9/08 8am	12/9/08 2:30pm	12/10/08 8am	12/11/08 8am	12/12/08 8am	12/13/08 8:30am	12/14/08 10:00am
Common Loon						1	1
Double Crested Cormorant						5
Pelagic Cormorant						2	4
Great Blue Heron		1
Mallards							3	4
Harlequin						1
Long-tailed Duck						2
Surf Scoter	25	16	29				12	13
Barrow's Goldeneye		18	27	18	22	21	19	18
Bufflehead						1	3	8
Common Merganser				3			7
Glaucous-winged Gull	5	3			1	3	2	2
Gull spp		1		11	2		7
Bald Eagle	2	3			1	1
Raven		2

The feeder remains popular with nuthatches, juncos and chickadees. Stood out near it for awhile Sunday afternoon trying to get a photo of a junco. No luck, but did notice that the chickadees taking off from the deck rail sound alot like a cat purring. I assume that it is there wings that are responsible for the sound.

2008-12-07T20:42:00.004-09:00

Still have a crush on the Nuthatches that are visiting the feeder. They have been joined this week by 10 juncos, at least 5 Chestnut-backed chickadees and a Brown creeper. The creeper was working the trunk of the tree that the feeder hangs in.

Week Three of the commute count. I've been taking notes on the sea state, so thought I might include them here. What I have noticed is that the choppier the seas, the more ducks near the Galankin dock. In any weather most of the birds I see are between Galankin Island and Kutkan island. The exceptions are the Long-tails and the Common Murres which so far are closer to Crescent harbor.

	12/1/08	12/2/08	12/3/08	12/4/08	12/5/08	12/6/08	12/7/08
Common Loon		1					1
Horned Grebe			1
Pelagic Cormorant	4	2		4		4	2
Great Blue Heron							1
Mallard				9
Harlequin	2			2	2
Long-tailed Duck			2				1
Surf Scoter	3	2	12	27	8	4	8
White-winged Scoter						5
Barrow's Goldeneye	13	6	19	12	18	22	25
Bufflehead				7	7	3
Common Merganser	5		10
Mew Gull	3
Thayer's Gull				1
Glaucous-winged Gull	2	3	4	18	5	3	5
Common Murre		2
Raven	1
Weather	Calm	Calm	Calm	Choppy	Calm	SW ripple	Calm

There are still fungi to be found in the area. Mostly Panellus spp, Mycena occidentalis and M. epipterygia. Also fruiting is Guepiniopsis alpina (gum drop jelly?). The Panellus longuiquus I've found this week has varied from hot pink to grey in color. I've found the small white version of this fungus on Vaccinium parvifolium, Menziesia and now on exposed roots of a small windfall Sitka spruce.

Found my first Panellus serotinus on Western Hemlock this week. It was growing on two trees, both had numerous fruiting bodies of Fomitopsis pinicola. Apparently hemlock isn't an unusual host, I just haven't seen it here. Found a particularly large one growing on a Red alder. It attracted my attention to another alder with several Xylaria. Not sure which one it is yet. It isn't hypoxylon and it doens't look like polymorpha. I need to locate spores to use the key I found, but so far the perithecia are immature. Fortunately, Xylaria dry and store pretty welll.

Another or maybe the same Western Screech owl was in the commons this eveing around 5:15pm. It was sitting in a willow at a height just above my head (way less than 6ft up). It let me walk within about 2ft of it. I stopped and spoke softly (some very inane nonsense), then walked past. After I passed by, it flew off.

2008-11-30T10:39:00.003-09:00

This week I skipped Thursday as it was Thanksgiving and I stayed on the island, should have gone kayaking as it was a very nice day.

	11/24/08	11/25/08	11/26/08	11/28/08	11/29/08
Common Loon		1
Pelagic Cormorant	3	3		5	4
Long-tailed Duck				2
Surf Scoter		26	22	6	7
Barrow's Goldneye			4	17	7
Bufflehead				7
Common Merganser				4
Mew Gull	1	1
Glaucous-winged Gull	2	31	5	1	5
Black-legged Kittiwake		1
Bald Eagle	1		1		1
Raven	1/

On the 24th I started to take notes about the birds I see on my way to the dock. Suffice it to say that it is alot easier to count birds on the water than it is in the woods. Most of that information will be presence instead of numbers and alot of the information on presence will be based on sound. At this point, the trail observations are still in my notebook, they may end up in a digital form this week.

First snow fell at sea level (at least while I was watching) this morning. Didn't stick around for long though.

Scared up a Western Screech Owl on the way home around 6:30pm. It was on the ground near a pond (or large mud puddle) near where I've seen the snipe. It flew up into a Red Alder and stuck around despite me trying to see the effect of a soft whistle. I'll have to look for feathers in the morning.

2008-11-27T12:20:00.005-09:00

Decided that it was time to take better notes about when mushrooms are fruiting. Although I have a sense of which species I find through out the year, I don't have very good documentation of the phenology. The last couple of weeks, I've found; Hypholoma capnoides, H. fasiculare, Lactarius alpinus (1st photo), Hygrophorus olivaceoalbus, H. camarophylllus, Collybia acervata, Pholiota sp., Panellus serotinus, P. longiquus, Pleurocybella porrigens, Crepidotus spp. possibly Panellus mitis, Mycena epipterygia and probably two species of grey striate lignicolous Mycenas (so much fun). Also found a Psathyrella which I haven't managed to id to species.

I've avoided Mycenas for a very long time, mostly because it takes a sharp single edged razor blade and a skilled hand to cut miniscule cross sections of miniscule gills in order to look at the shape of the cystidia. The skill is a bit variable, but I can buy razor blades. The yellow stemmed Mycena fits the description of M. epipterygia. Another somewhat similar species is flavoalba. If I had Meltzers I could be a bit more certain as M. epipterygia has amyloid spores and M. flavoalba does not. I'm more comfortable with epipterygia because of the somewhat viscid stem (notice the debris stuck on the mushroom) and the habitat and coloration seems to fit epitpterygia a bit better. I've found it on well rotted wood (either moss covered logs or branches) in scattered groups and sometimes in fairly tight clusters.

The grey somewhat frosty looking Mycena in the photo was growing on a rotten conifer log. The frostiness developed as it dried. When wet it was uniformly grey with a striate margin. In the center of the rather bad photo of the gill edge, there is a structure that looks like it has several stubby projections. There were basidia with pretty tidy looking sterigmata, so I'm interpreting this structure as a branched cystidia. Could be wrong and I'll try for a better section later.

This one seems to fit the description of Mycena occidentalis in the very fun section of the Pacific Northwest key to grey or brownish species and their cystidia . The key led me to M. subcana, and a note at the end of the that species description sent me to M. occidentalis. The hygrophanous, frosty cap, striate margin, cystidia with blunt projections, and occurence in clusters on conifers are the characteristics that seem to indicate that occidentalis is a reasonable fit. It is hard for me to be too confident with some of these species.

http://www.svims.ca/council/Mycenoid.htm#n726b)

2008-11-23T14:16:00.008-09:00

I've been keeping track of atypical birds that I see on my way to town in the morning for quite some time. Recently I've decided to count the birds on my way to town. I'll try to keep it up for a year. Most of the counts were done around 8am, the counts on the 22nd were at 9:30 and 2:30. The / indicates a double count. I'm counting from the Galankin Island Dock to my slip in Crescent harbor. I'm counting mostly the area of my path through the water, basically what I can see and identify without binoculars. I'm not counting gulls flying in the distance nor the eagles in the trees on the small islands.

	11/12	11/13	11/15	11/16	11/17	11/18	11/19	11/20	11/21	11/22
Common Loon	1									1
DoubleCrested Cormorant		1
Pelagic Cormorant	3	3	3	2	2	3	2	1	2	4/3
Great Blue Heron										1
Mallards										5/
Harlequin		3	3						3
Long-tailed duck					4
Surf Scoter	7	7	7	7	4	1	2
Barrows Goldeneye								3	2
Bufflehead								1
Common Merganser	2	4					1		1	1/
Glaucous-winged gull	1	14	1	2	2	4	3	3	5	5/
Common Murre	2		2	2	2
Marbled Murrelet	2			3
Belted Kingfisher							1
Song sparrow										1/

2008-11-17T06:47:00.007-09:00

Started noticing the distinct smell of mink in the basement last weekend. The mink like to move into the rather large space under the house below the mudroom. They don't actually get into the house, but the odor is intense.

Cheap canned tuna seems to be the best bait for island minks. I've tried jam and salmon scraps, but their weakness seems to tuna.

This one was not that happy to be photographed or for that matter to be carried down the trail. Unhappiness was expressed by scrambling back and forth in the cage and by an impressive odor. emitted from its scent glands. Carrying the cage 1/2 mile with an unsettled mink was satisfying, but not necessarily a treat. This one went to town in the skiff and was released on the city dock. Last year I spray painted the tail of one captured mink to see if they would return and didn't see any sign of that one after its removal. Not exactly conclusive evidence, but I'm not fond of the idea of moving the mink further using the car or of killing the mink. I suppose if I wanted the fur for something, I might reconsider.

In other island animal news, the semi-tame deer seems to be missing, at least it isn't frequenting the common lot by the dock any more. I'm not really sure if another resident decided to eat the deer or if it wandered off, but I'm guessing that it is more likely the former explanation.

There does seem to be a snipe living in the commons lately. I've flushed it twice, once on Friday morning and on the way home tonight. Both times it flew up pretty directly, then dropped just as quickly about 100ft away. The first time I thought that the wind caught it (it was gusting about 35-40 mph). Tonight it was very calm and it did the same thing. I could be the vegetation that is dictating the flight path.

There are still at least 6 nuthatches visiting the feeder, along with an equal number of juncos and chickadees.

The Galankin lake surface is largely covered with ice.

2008-11-13T17:15:00.005-09:00

Last year I half-heartedly tried to start a culture of Panellus serotinus. It was kind of a rushed job using spores and cardboard, I didn't bother to find a good container and didn't give it proper care. Oddly enough, it didn't produce anything.

Listening to Paul Stamets at Breitenbush rekindled my interest in getting this mushroom into culture and into a potentially larger project. Although it is edible, I'm thinking of Panellus mostly as an organism that had some potential use in local remediation projects. What started me off was the idea of feeding waste oil to Oyster mushrooms. In one of his lectures, Stamets suggested taking an oyster mushroom kit that was done fruiting, breaking it up and pouring waste oil on it as a food source for the spawn. I thought this idea (scaled up) might have some application for small villages in Alaska where waste oil is burned or shipped out for disposal.

Decided to follow through on this idea and ordered a Blue Oyster kit from Fungi Perfecti, the blue one is supposed to be more cold tolerant. It is busily fruiting away on the kitchen counter.

The other leg of the project is getting Panellus into culture. Last week I looked for Panellus where I had found it last year, but didn't have any luck. Fortunately this week I found a Red alder with a number of fruiting bodies. I'm trying to spend a bit more time on the preperation this time. I soaked some cardboard overnight, bought a small plastic container with a lid and peeled the outer paper off this morning. Following the instructions in Mycelium Running, I layered the corrugated part of the cardboard in the container and place between 4-6 pieces of the stems of the mushroom between the layers. I gave it a bit more water and added the lid. I'll keep the container in the mudroom of the house where it is a bit cooler, but above freezing.

I also started a few Crepidotus and Panellus longipes (sp?) in a smaller container.

2008-10-26T20:34:00.013-08:00

Breitenbush Mushroom Conference

I couldn't have asked for better weather for hunting mushrooms. It was sunny, autumn warm during the day with crisp-cold and star-filled nights.
The Big-leaf maples and alder leaves were bright yellow and the vine maples red. The leaves were falling, drifting over the road both on the main highway and even more picturesque on the side road from Detroit to Breitenbush. I drove up to the conference center. The photos don't even vaguely convey the intensity of the colors.

There were plenty of mushrooms available in the area, most of which don't occur this far north, but there was some overlap in species between the Sitka and Breitenbush. I didn't nececessarily expect there to be alot of overlap given the differences in vascular plant species and in the climate, I was just hopeful that there would be more species in common. Still it was valuable learning/relearning some species that might show up here at some point.
The speakers were pretty engaging; I particularly enjoyed and will no doubt use Tom Volk's description of what it would be like if people digested then ingested their food (like fungi) instead of ingesting then digesting food. Also found useful his description of waxy gills as similar to hardening candle wax. Not that it is terribly easy to fill the gills of Hygrophori, but now I have a better description of what a waxy gill is. I had totally forgotten about secondary homothallism until his lecture. Instead of 4 spores per basidia these fungi produce 2 spores. Each spore has 2 nuclei. Kind of handy not to need to find a compatible mating type of hyphae in order to reproduce. He showed a great little clip of hyphal growth borrowed from Fungal Cell biology website http://129.215.156.68/movies.html, there are also images that can be used for educational purposes. http://129.215.156.68/images.html

His second lecture talked about common misconceptions about fungi. He used his grandmother as the vehicle for this talk "my grandmother said that if you cooked mushrooms with a silver spoon and the spoon turned black, the mushrooms are poisonous". It was an entertaining way to cover the subjecty, alas I can't use it as my grandmothers never said anything about mushrooms and my mother had too much of a science background to say anything too crazy.

Paul Stamets gave a inspirational talk about how fungi could save the planet. He was preaching to the choir and the choir enjoyed the sermon. One topic that was interesting to me was the use (and medicinal value) of Fomitopsis officinalis by the Haida people of Haida Gwai. The species doesn't occur on the islands because it is associated with Douglas Fir which doesn't make it that far north. Paul suggested that it was an item that was collected on their travels down the coast. They were apparently also collecting people. Nancy Turner's book Plants of the Haida Gwaii doesn't mention any use of this species or of F. pinicola which occurs on the isands. Apparently the myceldium contains chemicals that are active against smallpox, something that would have been more than a little useful when that disease spread up the coast.

His second talk was also pretty interesting, more how fungi could help our souls.

Dorothy Beebee didn't give a formal presentation but offered a hand's on dye workshop Friday afternoon. We used Hypholoma fasiculare, Phaeolus schweinitzii and Hypomyces (lobster mushroom). All gave nice yellows. I did learn that to intensify colors of Hydnellums one should use alkali (washing soda) and a little acid (vinegar) will do the same for colors from Dermocybe.

I took alot of photos of the fungi collected; I'm including a few of the interesting ones.

Cyathus striatus. I suppose it could be C. helenae (the latter has hairs in tufts, the former the hairs aren't in tufts.), but the hairs don't look particularly tufted.

Gomphidius subrosea: this was probably the most common fungus that I saw in the forest. It is nicely viscid, apparently edible if you like slime and mycorrhizal with Doug Fir. Since there was an abundance of Chanterelles and other more highly regarded edibles, none of these mushrooms were delivered to the chef.

Found my first Matsutake (Tricholoma magnivelare) on this trip. On Saturday morning, went with a group up the Breitenbush highway toward Estacada, turned on the Red Lake road and parked about 1 mile in. I walked up the slope toward the larger Douglas Firs. It was very open and dry. Saw just a bit of the white cap of the matsutake, thought it was a Russula until I could see the veil. The smell is difficult for me to describe, except as strong.

I found a couple of references to this fungus being associated with Allotropa virgata, a mycotrophic vascular plant. Seems that Allotropa is dependent on this fungus for carbohydrates. http://www.bayareamushrooms.org/mushroommonth/matsutake.html
Found a number of Larch trees on this trip to Red Lake trail. Most had turned bright yellow.

Auriscalpium vulgare

A saprophyte on Douglas Fir cones. This is supposed to be widely distributed in North America, not sure what type of cones it utilizes outside the distribution of Doug fir, maybe pines?

Geastrum: I haven't decided which species of Earth Star. Definately haven't seen any of these puffballs in southeast.

I didn't see alot of birds at Breitenbush, but then I spent most of my time outdoors head down looking for fungi in in one of the hotspring pools. Did see a dipper in the river while soaking. Extremely luxurious, not quite as much as watching shooting stars from the pools, but close enough. Did see a very tame Gray jay on one of the forays.

2008-10-23T08:31:00.005-08:00

Seems that there are places in the Pacific Northwest where the leaves are red and gold and the sun shines all day long. I'll not dwell on the downside of this part of the world.

Dad and I went to Minto park in the afternoon. Many, many geese, looked like both Dusky Canada and Cackling were in the slough and flying over. I only remember hearing about Duskies when I was a kid, but then cacklers were just another type of Canada goose at that time. Found a report in the Thursday morning Statesman Journal that talked about Cackling geese arriving in mid October and staying through the winter. Guess I need to update my Willamette valley information.

Watched a Great Egret feeding on the far side of the slough. The yellow beak excluded a Snowy egret and the size and lack of brown-red seems to indicate a Great as opposed to a cattle egret, but I'm not totally convinced. . What was kind of interesting was the way it undulated its neck from side to side between strikes. The very bright and warm sun made it a bit difficult to identify most of the birds, but I could make out American Widgeons, Mallards, Coots, Double crested cormorants and Kingfishers.

Doesn't matter how well I know that the leaves of Acer macrophyllum are large, every time I see them I'm impressed. Gathered a bouquet of bright yellow ones for Dad.

2008-10-19T21:59:00.007-08:00

Sunday afternoon the sun came out and the feeder was swarming with birds and I realized that I'm seriously smitten with the Nuthatches. At least it seems like obsession since I can barely take my eyes off of them when they are around. Being entranced by their chatter is another symptom. I think that I can recognize two of the birds; both are lighter in color than the rest of the birds. According to the Cornell web site the top of the females head are blue-grey, the belly is lighter and the eyestrip narrower. The juveniles are similar to the adults but duller. In the end, I'm not sure if the lighter ones are juveniles or females. After looking at the photos I've taken, I can't notice much difference in the width of the eyestripes of the birds. The belly and head color might be more reliable indicator of gender.

One of the lighter birds is much fluffier than the other rather sleek looking birds. The other light one is just as slender as the other darker or richer colored individuals. I managed to get a photo of the fluffy bird, but not of the sleek one.

Based on the dark head and the brightish belly, I'm assuming that the nuthatch on the feeder is a male.

Found a population of about 20 Armillaria growing in the alder chips in front of the flower garden behind the house. I'm sure that they are the same as I found there last fall. Last fall, I decided they were A. ostoyae based on the macroscopic features. The key character that lead me to ostoyae was the dark fibrils on the surface of the younger caps.

Trolling around Tom Volk's website I read an article about a relatively newly described species of Armillaria (1999); A. nabsnona that had slipped under my radar.

An unfortunately easy thing to accomplish. The clincher for this species was the interesting branching of the basidia. This wasn't a subtle character with a thin section of the gill, at least not with some careful squishing with an eraser on the coverslip.

One interesting thing about Volk's key is the absence of ostoyae. One of the questions I hope to get answered at Breitenbush this week is what happened to ostoyae. That species is included on M. Kuo's key to North American Armillaria. The key lead in the latter key to get to ostoyae is the presence of dark scales on the cap and that the primary host is conifers. Apparently it can also occur on hardwoods.

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/armillaria.html.

http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/feb99.html

http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/armkey.html

Continued to work on putting the garden to bed for the winter. I moved 8 5-gallon buckets of seaweed up the hill, brings me to 14 and I'll need about 10 more to cover the vegetable beds.

Also took a last swipe at the huckleberries just before dark. Didn't add much to the freezer, maybe a half of a gallon zip lock bag, but it was satisfying to pick from the last of the heavy laden bushes by the trail.

2008-10-18T08:25:00.006-08:00

On Friday the 17th went for a brief walk up Gavan Hill trail. The weather varied between rain (often rather intense) and brief teaser bits of sunshine. I got soaked.
Collected a mushroom that I only had glimpses of last fall, that is when I found this fungus last year, it was pretty far gone. Last years' were growing in the bench muskeg in areas with alot of small pine trees. It was absent from the areas with abundant Carex livida. This year I found one rather chewed up specimen in the muskeg off the quarry road, again in an area with lots of small pines and ericaceous shrubs.

This patch of the mushrooms were growing near Shore pine rather close to the lower part of the trail. Saw a Hermit thrush while looking for additional populations of this mushroom.
The cap and stipe are a dark pink over white. The less developed caps were a bit deeper pink than the larger ones. The larger caps were slightly lighter on the margins. The largest caps were 6 and 7 cm across. The gills are distant, waxy and white with a bit of a pink cast. The gills did show some pink bruising, but I didn't see any with entirely pink gills. The stem was white at the very top, and the rest pink. The end was attenuated and most had a bit of a curve to the lowermost part. The largest were 10 and 11cm long and 1.5 cm in diameter. The cap and stem were quite moist almost sticky, but they dried quickly. I didn't notice any odor and the taste was mild.

I struggled my way through Hesler and Smith's monograph of Hygrophorus to subsection Camarophylli, series Rubentes; H. erubescens seems to be the best fit. I was tempted by the habitat to call this one H. capreolarius, but that species has darker gills. One subspecies of H. erubescens does seem to occur in bogs in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island, so I'll stick with that species for now.

This mushroom doesn't seem to be as robust or bulky as what I've seen eg. http://www.svims.ca/council/illust/Hygrophorus%20erubescens%201%20Michael%20Beug.htm

This photo looks a bit better http://www.flickr.com/photos/23151213@N03/2525032540/in/pool-84638739@N00

The habitat reference was; Macrofungi from six habitats over five years in Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island
Christine Roberts, Oluna Ceska, Paul Kroeger, and Bryce Kendrick. 2004. Canadian Journal of Botany 82:1518-1538

I noticed that I decided this mushroom was H. pudorinus var pudorinus last year, not sure why I ignored the lack of a yellow stem base. Must have been desperate to call it something.

2008-10-15T22:26:00.010-08:00

The 8 nuthatches are still visiting the feeder, they are pretty dedicated at food gathering. They go through whatever amount of food that is put out for them. Still wish I could get a reasonable recording of their chatter, but haven't managed to do so as yet. The birds are pretty tame, at least they keep eating when I'm standing right next to the feeder. Kind of odd for here but, the Juncos and Chickadees are less numerous at the feeder than the Nuthatches.

A Northern Flicker came to the feeder tree a few times over the last two weekends. Didn't land on the feeder or the rail, stayed on a branch nearby.

The Golden crowned sparrows seem to have moved on.

Seeing the Fork-tailed storm petrels most days on my commute, on the 14th they were in the channel between Japonski and town. Also on the 14th saw the first Longtails of the season in the channel.
The commute birds are starting to settle into winter mode; saw a loon with a distinctly yellow bill (I'm willing to call it a Yellow-billed loon) on Thursday and a Common loon on Friday. I noticed the first Harlequins on the rocks by the Galankin dock on Thursday and a pair of mallards on Saturday morning.
The Fork-tailed Storm petrels are around most days. I've only seen one that I thought was a Leach's. Other birds seen on the commute include: Black-legged Kittiwakes, Pelagic and Double Crested Cormorants and one Horned Grebe on the 14th.

Planted the local grown garlic plus 2 new varieties from Territorial, Belarus and Chesanok Red, over the last two weekends. It is the latest that I've planted it, so I'm crossing my fingers that it does well. Have most of the garden harvested and cleaned up, most of the harvest was rather pathetic, but what grew, tasted good. The Maria heirloom potatoes from Haines produced several knobby potatoes somewhat similar in shape to Swedish peanut.
On another catch-up sort of note, there was snow on Picnic Rock on the 6th of October.

2008-10-12T20:52:00.009-08:00

Collecting mushrooms has slowed down a little, mostly because I've been busy doing other things. Still there are a few things that I've managed to figure out over the last week or so.

Camarophyllus pratensis: This species was growing on the lawn at Sheldon Jackson.

The cap is a orange or coral color with a somewhat variable shape. Neither the cap or stem are viscid. The The gills are decurrent white and subdistant. The stipe was also white.

The cap color, lack of stickiness and staining and habitat are pretty distinctive, apparently the gills are often the same color as the cap. In Mushrooms Demystified the habitat is either open or grassy places or under Redwoods.

Xylaria cornu-damae: on unidentifiable rotten wood near beginning of Gavan Hill trail. The stalks weren't divided and antler-like as are those of X. hypoxylon. The stalks were more cylindrical and all black on the outer surface. I wasn't really sure what it was until I cut a section lengthwise. The interior was white with black perithecia lining the margin.

The lack of branching, club-shaped head, minutely bumpy surface and white interior seem to be good characters. I'm not entirely sure of the species. The Pacific Northwest Key council key leads me to that species without much trouble and the description seems good. There is a note that suggests that X. longipes might occur in the area, but it isn't documented. Both longipes and cornu-damae are said to occur on hardwood.

Tricholoma vaccinum: Alice Island under open grown Sitka spruce. If I'm remembering right they were growing in a manner that I could call gregarious. Caps were dark brown with darker fibrils, not quite what I would call scales. A key character for this species seems to be the veil remnants on the cap margin. A similar species T. imbricatum lacks the remnants on the cap margin. The stem was light with dark fibrils and hollow in the middle.

The other species seen recently that looks somewhat similar is Tricholoma pessundatum. The viscid cap is a good character to differentiate it. The cap is dark brown black in the center and somewhat lighter at the edge. The stem surface has vertical fibers. There was a strange odor to the fresh cap that dissapated. A patch of this species was growing on SJ campus near the museum in a relatively open woodsy spot under spruce. The largest of the caps were 5-6.5 inches across.

Cortinarius multiformis: Alice island growing under an open grown Sitka Spruce.
Kind of an attractive mushroom with a yellow brown cap, slightly darker brown edge. The cap was slightly viscid when wet and slightly shiny when dry. Has a thicker cobwebby veil that persists on the edge of the cap. Young gills are pale. The stipe is pale with brown fibrils, with a bulbous base.

Hygrophorus camarphyllus vs calophyllus: Alice island on the gravel walk behind the kindegarten that leads to a view of Sealing cove harbor. There were several under Sitka alder growing on the gentle slope from the walk.

Kind of difficult to make a decision about this one. The gills certainly aren't pink as described as sometimes occuring with H. calophyllus.

2008-10-05T16:55:00.008-08:00

Did another test of the Cortinarius phoeniceus var. occidentalis. I should use Dermocybe for this species instead of Cortinarius as it was described as such in 1989. I finally found a good reference to the section that includes the red gilled species.

Ammirati, J.F. (1989). Dermocybe, subgenus Dermocybe, section Sanguineae in northern California. Mycotaxon 34 (1): 21-36 that was available at the CyberLiber http://www.cybertruffle.org.uk/cyberliber/

One of the issues I needed settled was the difference between D. semisanguinaria and D. phoenicea var. occidentalis. Cap color seems like it might be a somewhat variable characteristic to hang a species on, but that does seem to be the main characteristic I could find in the descriptions in the article.

The distribution of the two species overlaps, but D. semisanguinarius is more common on the east coast and phoenicea on the west coast.

"Dermocybe phoenicea var occidentalis is the most frequently encountered member of section Sanguineae on the Pacific Coast, extending from Californis into Alaska. It also occurs in the mountains of the interior where it can be found in some years as early as August. It prefers coniferous woods, but also occurs in mixed forests of conifers and deciduous trees. "

Recollected both species of Cortinarius or Dermocybe from the SJ spruce tree, this time keeping them in seperate paper bags. Sorting the dried fruiting bodies was kind of problematic last time and I was curious if the species had been mixed in the dye baths. Basically could I achieve the same colors twice?
Mordanted some roving and loose wool in Alum with a bit of cream of tartar the day before the dye bath. Used 23 brown Cortinarius (best fit is cinnamomeus) and 16 Dermocybe in quart jars about 2/3 full of water. The jars went in a water bath in the double pot designed for pasta. I was hoping that the extra layer would keep the jars from breaking. Also used the dye bath saved from the last round of dyes.

The mushrooms simmered in the dye bath for about 25 minutes before I added the wool. The exhaust dye jar went in the pot about 5 minutes before the wool was added. I let the dye bath go for another hour, then let the wool cool in the dye overnight.

The D. phoenicea wool was a pretty nice rose sort of red, a bit darker than the color of the silk scarf. The exhaust dye (left) was a tangerine color (similar to the color last time) and the Cortinarius cinnamomus was a lighter, duller orange. The pink wool above the red wool in the center is unmordanted wool put in the Dermocybe dyes.

2008-09-28T13:38:00.005-08:00

Mushroom dyes

Last year I dyed a small sample of wool with the Cortinareus collected from the Sitka Spruce growing near the flagpole at SJ. I called that fungus. C. semisanguinarius. This year I recollected the red gilled Cort that was growing in the same spot and noticed that the cap seemed alot redder than semisanguinarius is supposed to be and decided that it must be C. phoeniceus var. occidentalis. They both have yellowish stems, red gills, turn black with KOH and have similar (I assume) ecology. The most significant differences seem to be the cap color and occasionally the stem color. The stem color seems to be more variable in semisanguinarius.

It would be nice to have something other than cap color to go on. The ones here aren't as red when wet as some of the photos would suggest, but when dry the caps did look alot redder.

I premordanted the silk scarf and some wool roving in Alum/cream of tartar. The scale I have at home is kind of a joke, so I guessed at the amount of alum. Basically less than a teaspoon for the 2 oz of material. While that simmered, I seperated the mushrooms that had been drying for the last few days. The two types (I had a second rusty orange Cortinarius drying as well) were not so easy to seperate when dry. The difference in the cap color fades with prolonged drying.

Put roughly one ounce of C. phoeniceus var occidentalis in a gallon jar and filled it with warm water. The water turned a pretty deep red in less than 5 minutes. I put the 10 or so of the other Cortinarius in quart jar and let them soak as well. The liquid was more of an orange color.

Rinsed the mordanted silk and wool before adding it to the jars, (the silk in the phoeniceus and the wool in the other). Simmered for 1 hour and let cool in the liquid for several hours. Rinsed both in warm water and let dry.

The scarf is a nice shade of orange red (deep orange red, #36 using the color chips) although it looks more like blood with the flash. The wool is what I would call a soft tangerine sort of orange (bright orange, #54). The orange wool is pretty similar to the color achieved last year. In fact it matches the same color chip. I don't know if I left a few of the phoeniceus in the mix or if in fact the two mushrooms dye wool the same color. Hopefully there are some of each left growing so I can try again.

It was a little slower of a mushroom week, but I did find another Suillus the other day along the Gavan trail. There were 3 or 4 of them under a Pinus contorta just off the board walk not too far past the last fennish muskeg.

Suillus umbonatus: it was growing in kind of a tight cluster near a shore pine so I'm assuming that it is associated with it, although there are Western Hemlock in the area as well.

Cap is viscid, somewhat irregular in shape, the ones I picked were 1. 5 , 2 and 3 inches in diameter. The color was somewhere between light and medium olive brown.

The pores are large and yellow (soft yellow, #84 from the yellow olive brown page). The stem was slender, 1, 1. 5 and 1.75 inches tall were what I measured. No glandular dots that I could see. There was an annulus, it looked like a brown, somewhat transparent slug wrapped around the upper stem. The annulus dried flat and rootbeer brown colored.

I didn't taste this one. No staining reactions. The cap flesh was light gray and the stem flesh a bit yellower than that of the cap.

S. umbonatus seems to be the best fit.

http://www.mykoweb.com/boletes/species/Suillus_umbonatus.html

Also found this relatively inconspicous Inocybe in the second growth off the Gavan trail. I'm not taking this genus any further at this point as there is only so much I can take on at one time. Thought I'd at least pay it my respects by acknowledging its existance.

I'm pretty certain that it is an Inocybe. The spore color is a bit on the dull side and the cap shape looks right. I've been struggling a bit with the subtleties of color lately, so I can only hope that I'm making the right call.

2008-09-28T08:34:00.005-08:00

September 27

Julie Roller and I bypassed the two sunny days this week and choose the first rainy day to head up Harbor Gavan to collect seeds. We met around 2pm at Crescent harbor and Julie drove up the mountain. Happy that I brought all my rain gear, but wished I had brought the more serious rain coat.
The weather was merely wet when we started up the trail, wet enough though that we put our raingear on in the cab of her small truck. We were on our way to the meadows of the boulder field where the plants we searching might have ripe seeds. Most of the way along the ridge before the signpost marking the fork we could see the ocean and the surrounding peaks. This changed somewhere before we reached our destination, in fact the rain was intense and rather icy feeling. We passed only one group of fellow hikers (or people with bad timing) along the ridge.
I looked at the hourly weather records for the afternoon taken at sea level, I assume at the airport. They show a nice deterioration in conditions during our hike, but don't really give much of the feel of the wind driven rain in our faces.

1:53: 52F, 74% humidity, 9 miles visibility, winds from the SE at 9.2 miles no rain
2:41: 51 F, 83% humidity, 7 miles visibility, winds from the SE at 9.2 miles, 0.02 rain
2:53: 51, 83% humidity, 6 miles visibility, winds from SSE at 9.2 miles, 0.02 rain
3:53: 50, 87% humidity, 3 miles visibility, winds from SE at 11.5 miles, NA rain
4:22: 50 F, 94% humidty, 3 miles visibility, winds SE 11.5 (gust to 18.5), 0.05 rain

We started back around 4:00 or so just when the weather started to deteriorate nicely. It was easy enough to deal with on the way east, but I favored the head down push sort of posture on the way back to the trail head. The rain made it kind of difficult to use the binoculars that I had managed to bring this trip. Did see several Golden-crowned sparrows.

Both the Geum califolium and Cornus canadensis were a nice red color, the Athyrium was in places quite golden. The nicest micro view was of a patch of Gentiana platypetala blooming next to a patch of bright red Cornus. The only other flowers I saw in bloom were the Erigeron peregrinus and the very dissimilar Erigeron or former Aster. I did take a flower of each home with me. The flowers and leaves are quite dissimilar for purple daisy-like plants. The typical Erigeron has tidy looking heads with relatively short ray flowers. The margins of the leaves are smooth. The alternate daisy creature has larger heads with longer more irregular looking rays and toothed leaf margins. Both have similar looking subtending bracts that are quite hairy. I'm feeling fairly confident that it is Canadanthus modestus, but after all these years of everything being Erigeron, it is hard to shift gears.
I guess there was one Hiericium triste blooming as well.
Collected seeds from Veratrum viride, Anemone narcissifolium, Geranium erianthum, Saussurea perennis and Aconitum delphinifolium. Might try to get back for Gentiana seeds.

2008-09-21T22:28:00.007-08:00

I did a quick collecting run Saturday evening through the Historical park and by the SJ lawn. I brought one quart sized ziploc bag which was happily inadequate for what I found on my pre-dinner run. In fact I had the bag over full to spilling and three large Hydnum repandums in my hand by the time I was back to the parking lot. In the park the Amanita muscaria are coming on nicely, there were several very small golden chanterelles and troops of Winter ones. Clitopilus under the spruce by the corner of the lower parking lot. Collected a deep red peppery Russula with yellow spores that I'll call R. queltiii. Also saw Clavaria purpurea, Cortinarius semi-sanguinarius and Entoloma stritus.

I did collect a few new things on the path home including Agaricus smithii.

I haven't found too many Agaricus in southeast outside the grocery store, so I was kind of excited to hear about one growing near the large spruce in the SJ lawn. There were 3 or 4 large mushrooms growing in grass and another one coming up. None of them were fully open, so I'm unsure how large this one can be. I did leave one to grow and am optimistic that it might be allowed to grow (I'm deluding myself on this one). The two individuals I brought home were about 4 inches tall, the stems were rather stout (ca. an inch in diameter) with a larger base. The cap and stem have kind of a golden cast to them that increased with age. The flesh or surface didn't show any staining. There wasn't a distinctive odor to me. It is supposed to have an almond odor, but it isn't apparent to my weak nose. The ring is membranous, but difficult to see with the cap unexpanded. The base of the stem was large enough to key this one to A. smithii.

Tricholoma pessundatum: The Tricholoma was growing under Western Hemlock in moss under Sitka spruce beside the path to the plaque on Merrill Rock. I collected several as the fruiting bodies were rather abundant.

The cap was medium red Brown (#43) with darker small fibrils. The caps were somewhat viscid. The margin is blackened in the older individuals. The photo looks a little oranger than the mushroom in hand. The mature caps I measured were 65cm, 54, 52, and 50cm in diameter. The young caps are reminiscent of the shape of a Russula. The gills are white with brown stains or flecks. The stem is light brown with darker lengthwise lines, kind of fibrous looking.

It took a couple of trys to identify this one. It keyed to Tricholoma stans in the PNW key, mostly because I bypassed T. pessundtum because the gill margins didn't have the dark edge. T. stans isn't documented in the PNW or in California, so I was feeling a bit dubious. In the key to Tricholoma at the Mushroom expert site, it keyed to T. pessundtum which is documented in the PNW. Arora says that it should be avoided unless one wants to spend the night violently ill. I'm content to eat king boletes and hedgehogs.

The last one didn't come from the park but was a left over from the insect collecting earlier in the week. It was growing on the ground in the young growth forest (Pine, Hemlock, Spruce etc) off the lower trail of Gavan Trail.

Cordyceps is an obligate parasite of either arthropods or other fungi, in the case of C. ophioglossoides of an Elaphomyces (deer truffle). Unfortunately, I didn't dig down far enough to see if there was a truffle below. Seems like I'm not the first person to pick this fungus without adequate digging.

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/cordyceps_ophioglossoides.html

Despite all of the emphasis on fungi and the required focus on the ground to find them, I have noticed a few birds lately. There are 6 nuthatches, chickadees, juncos and song sparrows working the feeder. One Golden-crowned sparrow was in the garden on Saturday. One day last week there were about 20 Black-legged Kittiwakes on the path to town. Friday I saw one Phalarope on the way to town and Fork-tailed Storm petrels on the way home. They were there on Saturday and today as well.