Life on the Outer Coast

Thursday June 21

26 years ago today I flew into Sitka for the first time. It was a day alot like today, high clouds and cool. I spent my first night at Don and Mary's house in Thimbleberry Bay. I thought that I was going to freeze to death. I spent the night wrapped in as many quilts as I could find in their spare room. Somehow I survived the night. I was impressed by the hike to their beach front house and the huge ferns around the doorstep.
I hadn't heard of Sitka or thought of visiting Alaska until I was offered a volunteer position as a botanist on an inventory project. A job for an undergraduate botany student was an amazing thing. Without a bit of research or thought, I accepted the job. It proved to be a good impulse.

Now it seems I'm on my way to relearning the sedge flora, maybe this will be the year for the sphagnums and crucifers too.
I did find another Carex along the Cross trail yesterday, Carex echinata var phyllomanica (formerly phyllomanica). At least that name change was easily traceable. It has sessile, gynaecandrous yellowish spikes that are only about twice as long as wide.

Today noticed that the Tolfieldia glutinosa and Vaccinium vitis idaea were in bloom along the beginning of Gavin Hill trail.
We caught 8 ground beetles in our pit traps last night, no millipedes, but did manage to catch 2 of the yellow-green flies that I brought in last Friday from Starrigavan. They didn't survive the night in the pit. I'm quite surprised that they went in the trap as it was a jar buried so that the rim was flush with the ground surface and had a foil roof over it. I'll have to try harder to identify them.
We've seen a family of Chickadees, Townsend's Warblers and the sapsucker (daily) in the plot.