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.

The week started out with the following quote; "In love, war and thankless large projects, retreat is always the first option to consider"
I haven't had a daily quote since kayak building days, but Brad supplied this one on Monday in reference to a project we are pondering, which I guess I started working on. The quote was a good fit for the tasks that occupied me for most of this week; 501c forms, cleaning, cooking Thanksgiving dinner, species lists.

I've barely been outside most of the week. I did see 2 harbor porpoises swimming past the dock Monday morning. Jan told me that they are quite common this time of year, but I can't say that I've seen them very often. Mostly pelagic cormorants and mew gulls on the commute. I have seen one or two long-tails, about 5 common mergansers and a few glaucuous winged gulls. Both Friday and Saturday I saw two loons, neither well enough to feel confident about calling them Common or Pacific loons.

Very briefly stopped at Moller park on Monday afternoon. Just a few sparrows in the salmonberries. Most were song sparrows, but one looked alot like an immature white-crowned sparrow.

Saturday morning saw a Western Grebe just east of the end of Galankin Island.When I first saw it, I thought it was a rather strange looking loon. Binoculars really do help. The long, yellow bill , white breast and throat were rather distinctive. The only other time I remember seeing this grebe in Alaska was near the Stikene river.

On the way to town Saturday noon saw a bird that I can't quite identify. It was about the size of a skinny Hermit thrush. Brown back, head and tail, light uniformly colored breast. The head (front and back) had a distinct orange-gold cast to it. The bill wasn't different from what I'd expect on a thrush. It was turning over alder leaves in the trail in the commons. It tweeted a couple of times while foraging, it was a different sound than I've heard before. It tolerated my presence for awhile, but eventually flew off when I got close enough to see it clearly (what binoculars?). It had a solid brown tail, no other color was visible. Looked abit this morning, but no luck.

Had done enough grading that I felt free to spend most of Sunday outdoors. Thought I would just get a morning hike in before the weather fell apart, but was pleasantly surprised by a very nice day. Had decided to go up Indian river at least to the first bridge and beyond to look for Schistostega, ended up going a good deal further. Was encouraged to venture further by running into an old friend who was likewise out for a solitary wander. Discovered that we were headed the same general direction, so teamed up. Didn't cross the bridge but went up the old trail on the west side of the river. Soon found the upturned stump with an impressive growth of Schistostega. There was some good glowing gold under some roots that were hanging over one spot. On the way back down, I tried a headlamp survey and found alot more of the glowing protonema. I still wonder how long it takes for that moss to colonize a root wad. It seems that it can happen relatively quickly. This root was didn't have much else growing on it (not that I did a thorough survey). The hemlock didn't have any needles left in the branches, but the bark seemed to be well attached. I should have checked for amount of bryophytes growing on the upper side of the trunk, but didn't think of it when I was there. Didn't see any polypores to check orientation. Guess I need to find trees the year that they fall and take a series of photographs. Guess I'll have to get a camera and maybe even use it.

It was a very different view of the valley going up on the west side. Besides the view being the reverse of what I've usually seen, I wasn't racing for the trailhead for one reason or another. I still have the feeling that I could stay in the valley for several weeks and still have more to see. What I really noticed this trip was the amount of deer use. The vaccinium was heavily browsed in many places and there was alot of scat. Besides Vaccinium there is also alot of Cornus, Coptis and Rubus. Is there more of these upland plants in this valley are because of less disturbance than in larger river valleys or is my memory faulty about how much of these plants are in other valleys?

Was somewhat proud of myself when I found the big tree on my own. I wasn't sure that I could do it, especially given Paul's trouble. I just kept walking in what seemed the right direction. On one stop to look around, it just looked like the right place, without really being able to say why. Looked around another tree and there it was. Ate my pumpkin pie while doing homage to this giant. Still impressed by the size and the interesting architecture of the branches. I wonder what sort of forest this tree grew in. It seems that it must have been more open to maintain the lower branches.

Continued up the valley to explore some of the many creeks incising the slopes. Jay had been hunting further up the valley last weekend and wanted to see if he could find where he had shot his deer. A small voice was wondering about the wisdom of relocating a kill site and gut pile, but decided that further exploration was more compelling than over cautiousness. Went up along side one small creek then crossed over to another and another until we were across from the center of the middle Sister. The slope was home to an exceptionally nice stand of yellow cedar and hemlock. A number of the cedar were quite large and had luxurious growth of bryophytes. One patch of Isothecium cardottii covered about 10 ft of a large cedar and the mound that supported the tree. Collected a small piece of what seems to be Apometzgeria pubescens. It looked like a particularly robust Metzgeria, but in better light I could see that the hairs covered the entire surface of the liverwort. I had been looking for an east facing slope with yellow cedar for the epiphyte study. Definately found one.

The furthest point out we found an interesting dead tree. With a healthy imagination it looked like a turret. With a good stretch I could have climbed inside, but contented myself with leaning out the tower window. At 2pm decided that light was going to be at a premium, so started turning down valley, but stayed on the slope. For awhile I was wondering if this was a mistake. I was fairly sure that we were about to cliff ourselves. We still had options, the view over the falls looked alot like a cliff, but there was an alternative. We did manage to find a way into a ravine and out the other side without backtracking and found our way down a steep, but walkable slope.

On the way back stopped in two spots at the flats below dry channels with enough small debris to look like they had recently had been flooded. The rooted ferns looked a bit beat up and there were Polypodiums that had washed in. Maybe there is more disturbance here in the fall than I am aware of. Perhaps the abundant Adiantum and Polystichums are there because of the good drainage and the disturbance. I did notice again that the Polystichums in the steeper areas look like P. setigerum and the ones in the valley like P. braunii.

I'm surprised about the numbers of mushrooms I'm still seeing. Hydnum umbilicatum, Craterellus neotubaeformis, Hygrophorus (thigh-high stocking, okay I'm proud of this common name), Panellus serotinus, Pleurocybella porrigens and a new and quite bright yellow mushroom that looks alot like a Panellus serotinus growing on a very rotten red alder.

Returned to the trailhead just before 4pm, almost dark enough to require a headlamp in the denser canopy.

It's time for another attempt to keep a log of my wanderings. The slips of paper stuffed in Anderson's Flora of Alaska isn't going to work that well.

From where I sit at my computer I have a grat view of the garden with a background of forest. In mid May just before I left on vacation, the garden had several golden crowned sparrows scratching away and a few rufous sided hummingbirds working the crocus and pulmonarias. The golden crowns are gone, but have been replaced with hermit thrushes. The garden itself is very full, probably more than a little chaotic to most people, but just what I'm looking for in a garden. The two raspberry canes growing out of the Rhododendron is probably over the top, but oh well.

Last Sunday, I took advantage of the unexpected nice weather and walked up Indian River to the long muskeg. It was a convoluted journey since I went on a few side trips on the way. I stopped at the "shot pine" muskeg to look for Sphagnum and to see what was blooming. I noticed Kalmia microphylla, Andromeda polifolia, Rubus chamaemorus, Carex pluriflora, C. livida, and Trichophorum caespitosum. I collected a few sphagnum, one small red species, S. wulfii and a larger light brown Sphagnum that I've only keyed to section sphagnum. Fortunately the latter should be easy to eventually identify in the field, because it is alot more robust and compact in its branching pattern than most of the other sphagnum in the muskeg. Spread myself out on the moss for awhile to enjoy the sun and listen to the juncos. I need to not embarrass myself about that bird again.

Also stopped at a small island in the river and found Carex macrochaeta and Romanzoffia sitchensis blooming. There was also a small crucifer that I'm not touching until it fruits. Looked at most of the Osmorrhiza to check species, all were purpurea. Also noticed Listera cordata in bloom.

Continued wandering up to the long muskeg, just as much to see if I could find it on my own as to actually go there. I was satisfied with my ability to easily find it, but it wasn't terribly satisfying being there by myself so I didn't stay too long. On the way back, I explored the area along the river just below the second bridge (?) near the cut-off to the muskeg. Found a small patch (about 6 or 7 individuals) of Polystichum andersonii. The older fronds had small, but visible bulblets which were easy to find by feel. The new fronds didn't have discernable bulblets and I'm not sure when they develop. I'll have to check periodically this summer. Collected a great Scapania from the river edge and a Hypnum from a log. Both had abundant sporophytes.

I did see a very young robin near the trail head. It still had astray looking feathers on its head and a very spotty breast.