A Wild Life

On May 17th dad and I landed in Anchorage to meet Uncle and Grandpa on our why to Adak Alaska. We needed to overnight in Anchorage before we continued on to Adak. Dad and I meet someone there to go birding with while Uncle and Grandpa went shopping.

After the guy picked us up, we went to Kincaid park to see if we couldn’t get an American three-toed Woodpecker, Spruce Grouse, Boreal Chickadee, Black-capped Chickadee, and Black-backed Woodpecker. We managed to get all of those except for the Three-toed which proved quite elusive for the entire trip.

After we were done at the park we headed out to Flattop Mountain to look for Canada Jays and Dall Sheep. We got both the Jay and the Sheep although the Sheep were quite aways away.

We then went to Potters marsh where we looked for Northern Waterthrush and Arctic Tern. We got the Tern but it was still a little early in the season for the Waterthrush as it turned out.

We called it a day after that since it was getting late, but on the way back to our Air bnb we were told where we could go and have a fairly good chance of seeing a Moose. Since I had never seen a Moose in Alaska after we were dropped off we got Uncle and went to see if we could see any Moose. We managed to see 2 Moose. I ended up with 6 new state birds and 2 lifers.

Earlier this week I went and checked my trail camera that I had set on a rub tree up Indian river. It had been a couple of weeks since I had last checked it, so I was curious to see what it had. I gotten up and left at about 5am to see if I could find a buck up there, but to no avail.

I got up to my trail camera around 6:30am and checked my foot print trap. I had bent a couple of fern blades over right in front of the rub tree, so that I could tell if an animal had walked in front of the tree. The ferns had pressed into the ground, so I felt pretty sure that I had at least one video of a bear. I checked the camera and saw that there were 30+ videos on it. I swapped the SD card out for another one then continued up the valley.

On my way back down the trail I saw a Brown bear across the river in some devils club.

In the cub video, I think the mother bear is probably off to the left out of the screen, because there was a second cub in the first few seconds of the clip that ran in that direction.

Up at Thimbleberry lake, dad and I went out to a gravel bar, which I don’t like taking the path to- as it has a lot of salmonberries that lean over and get in the way.

I found what looked like a path through some tall grass, that I thought might be a shorter way back to the main trail, though it was a bit watery in places and went over my shoes if I stood around too long.

I pointed it out to dad, and he let me follow it back while he went back the way we came. The way we came was probably less brushy, and definitely shorter than the way I was taking, but I didn’t know that at the time.

Heading towards the slight opening in the trees that I saw, I went up further in the grass than the trail to avoid getting my feet as wet. I believe there was also a somewhat hidden creek around that area that I needed to avoid.

Further up, and just into the trees I found some bear tracks in the mud, they were headed the opposite direction so I wasn’t too worried and kept on walking. Though after that I figured that the path I was following most likely wasn’t made by people.

I did make a bit of noise while I was following the path, but it was mostly my normal crashing around through twigs and bushes, and the only thing different was some muttering. Which I doubt would’ve alerted any creatures of my presence, but I could be wrong.

After finding the tracks, I came upon another creek which I went down to check out before heading back to the path. There might’ve been a fish fry in it, but I couldn’t get close enough to see.

At one point while I was following the trail, it seemed to split in two. One doubling back in sort of in the direction of the main path, and one continuing forward. I followed the one heading back, but it became a dead-end and I went back through the brush to follow the other path.

Not long after that, it opened up and was actually fairly nice to walk though. I could hear some people walking by, and dad called after they’d passed. He sounded a ways away, but the next time he sounded closer, so I figured he was headed up the main trail closer to me.

The open spot continued on further, but I figured I’d gone up far enough and didn’t know how much further it would go, so I chose follow what looked like a path through the salmonberries.

I shuffled in backwards, not wanting to get a face full of brush and bugs/spiders, only to get a little confused and frustrated for a moment when I couldn’t seem to go further. Apparently it had taken a short turn to my right for no reason.

After that turn, it basically became a path for small critters that I would’ve had to belly-crawl through in order to avoid the brush. I needed to crouch at some point, though I can’t really remember why, and after that I started shoving my way through facing sideways, instead of backwards.

The brush was really thick, and not long before I reached the alders, apparently I’d gone up a log, because my foot slid down the side. If there hadn’t been such thick brush, it probably would’ve been a much more painful drop (though I also probably would’ve seen it before I fell).

Once I reached the alders, I knew that I was close to the main trail, and after a moment I could see dad through the trees. Thankfully, the alders weren’t all that brushy and I could just weave my way though them.

After making it back to the main trail, I took of my coat to shake it off, and later I did something similar with my hoody. Surprisingly, there were no bugs or spiders, so maybe all that thick brush kept them from clinging on.

Other notable things: 
I looked around and found a small toad when we were heading up.

Creekbed had some water running down it.

There were a couple of fish fry in a pool near the lake, on the gravel bar.

There were a bunch of tiny moths in the tall grass.

July 8th 2020

A couple Sundays ago I went up Verstovia. When I got up that morning, it was foggy out, but I went any ways.

I started up the trail in the clouds at about 8:10 or so. I headed up the trail and got above the clouds a bit over 1000 feet elevation. It was about that time when I started getting into snow. The snow was not as deep but softer than it had been when I was up there two weeks prior. Which made it easier to get up the trail. When I got to the second view point, I could see a little bit of the bench there, but it was still mostly covered in snow.

I ran into a couple of people coming down as I was getting to the tree line. When I got up to Picnic Rock, I could see that the clouds went out as far over the ocean as I could see, but they didn’t go all the way up Indian River Valley. It took me about 1 hour and 35-40 minutes to get to Picnic Rock. After I walked around on the soft snow by picnic rock, I walked down the hill a little ways to a spot that was free of snow and in the sun. I hung out there for a couple of hours, then I walked back to picnic rock and down the trail.

On my way down the trail I ran into several people heading up. It was still cloudy by the time I got to the trailhead, but it wasn’t foggy any more.

On Sunday there was a socially distant bioblitz via inaturalist that I took part in. In the morning I went up Verstovia. It had been a few months since I was last up to the top of Verstovia, so I was curious to see how much snow was up there.

I was at the trail head between 9 and 9:15. I took it slow much of the way up there stopping to look at and take photos of things along the way. There was hardly any snow before the first view point and most of the way to the second view point. The snow got to be deeper and more of a problem at the base of a set of stair with a big rope that was not to far from the second view point.

The snow was packed down, so I didn’t sink into it but it was a bit slippery. Since there was very little to hold onto and very few foot holes kicked into the snow, I had to be careful where I put my feet.

I got up to just before the second view point, when I heard what sounded like Ptarmigan. I looked up into the bushes up the hill from me and saw two white Willow Ptarmigan moving through the bushes ahead of me. I was able to get a few poor photos of them through the bushes before they disappeared over the hill from me.

I raced up the trail pasted the second view point after them. I got around the corner to see if I could get a better photo of the Ptarmigan, but by the time I got there the Ptarmigan had disappeared over the hill and down the other side into the bushes.

I continued up the trail and carefully picked my way through the switch backs so that I didn’t slip and slide down the hill. I came across a couple of people with a dog that were on their way down just before the ridge. After they passed me I continued up the trail. I ran into a set of what I’m pretty sure were Ptarmigan tracks in the woods along the ridge. The snow was hard all of the way to picnic rock, so I didn’t sink in at all which was nice.

When I got to where picnic rock was supposed to be, I looked around and there was no rock there. There was also almost no trees, and where I could see the trees, there was only a max of 2 feet sticking out of the snow up on top. I could see where people had skied over by Arrowhead Peak. I walked around there looking at things on the trees and trying to find the White-winged Crossbills that I heard. I was eventually able to find the Crossbills and take some photos of them.

After I had been up there for an hour or so maybe two, I headed down. I started slipping on the way down in several places, and after I was down below the second view point, I slipped and fell and slid down the trail a little ways before I was able to grab onto some brush along the side of the trail and stop myself. From there I carefully made my way down the snow trail without any more problems. It had taken me between 2-3 hours to make it to Picnic Rock, and I made it down in about an hour.

When I looked at the photos I had taken up there on Monday, it was interesting to see the change in how much snow was up there on Sunday compared to when I was last up there in mid January.

Yesterday (Sunday) I went for a hike up Verstovia. I got up and left about 8:30am, and it was about 16 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny outside. I walked to the trailhead and made it there at about 8:40am. It took me about 25 minutes to get to the first view point and about 20 minutes to get to the second one.

I figured that the trail might be a bit slippery because of the snow, but something that did not occur to me was that the stairs and some parts of the hill might have been like a ski ramp. The snow was packed down and was hard to kick in foot holds to get up and over them, so I kind of had to clamber up and over them. In a couple of spots I was glad that there was a rope or cable that I could hold onto to pull myself up, especially the one rocky section just before the second view point.

Shortly after I got to the ridge I heard a few Red-breasted Nuthatches. After a few minutes I saw them flying around in the trees. While I was there I saw a few White-winged Crossbills as well. After I was done looking at them I continued up the trail. I got to tree line and saw that people had made a path through the snow. I walked up through the foot holes in the snow. Just before Picnic Rock I ran into part of the snow that had a hard enough crust that I could walk on top of it. I got up to Picnic Rock at about 10:30 or so. I looked around up there for a bit and then headed back down. While I was up there I found a spot that I sunk down to my waist in. I also saw a few sets of what looked like pretty fresh Ptarmigan tracks maybe only a day old, but I didn’t see any Ptarmigan up there.

I started down at about 10 till 12, and I was back to the house by about 1:30pm or so. Coming down from Picnic Rock I sat down on the hard snow and kind of half slid half crawled down to the foot holes. Once I was back to the foot holes, I walked down the trail. There were a couple of spots on the way down where I sat down and slid down the trail a short distance, but most of it was alright.

It was a fun hike, I had never been up Verstovia in some much snow before.

2019 was an okay year for me. I saw a total of 155 birds in Alaska and 5 of those were new for my Alaska list. With those 5 new birds my Alaska list is now up to 206.

On April 30 I was walking out to check the mail when I looked up and saw a fairly large light colored raptor circling over head. I was pretty sure it was an Osprey, so I ran back into the house and got my camera. It was still circling when I came back out, so I was able to get some photos of it. A couple of days later I was down at the park and saw another Osprey. I got some photos of it as it flew over head.

On May 2 I was down at the park and saw a group of Hudsonian Godwits. While I was down there, I saw several more groups fly by. In total I saw 45 Hudsonian Godwits, which is the most I have ever seen.

On May 5 I was down at the lake seeing what was down there. While I was there I noticed a swallow that appeared browner than the rest of them. I stayed there for a while trying to get photos of it; eventually it landed on a power line, and I was able to get better photos of it. I decided that it was a Northern Rough-winged swallow.

On August 18 I went to the muskegs at the base of Gavan Hill to see if I could get better photos of a Solitary Sandpiper that I had seen briefly a couple of days prior. I found and photographed the Solitary Sandpiper some more.

On August 19 Dad, Rowan and I were up the back side of Verstovia with a friend. While we were up there, I noticed that several Ravens were harassing an eagle up by the peak. There were several other eagles up there, but this one appeared to be the only one that was being harassed very much. After I took some photos of it, I decided that is was a Golden Eagle.

On October 11 I was walking down Indian River road when I noticed a big flock of ravens. That was not all that unusual around here, but as I looked to see if there was something other than a raven in the group, I noticed that they were harassing a hawk. I was able to get some photos of the hawk and realized that it was a Rough-legged Hawk.

On November 29 Dad got a report of a Black-billed Magpie over at Alice island, so we headed over there. After looking for it for a while, we finally saw it and got some photos of it.

On December 28 after I had gotten done walking my routes for the morning for the Christmas bird count, Grams got a call from Dad and while they were talking Dad said there were Gray-crowned Rosy-finches out past Whale Park. Grams and I went out there so I could go there for them. I found them after I got out there and was able to get some photos of them.

On November 8, 2019 Grandpa and I headed up Indian River. I was going to go hunting while Grandpa picked cranberries. We got to the first bridge at 9:30 am and went our separate ways. I headed up the river and Grandpa headed over to the muskeg where he was going to pick cranberries. We agreed to meet at the second bridge at 3:00 pm, if we did not run into each other before then.

I headed into the brush and followed the path that I normally do to get to the open timber that is back up the west fork of Indian River. I only saw a couple fresh sets of deer tracks while I was walking through the brush on my way to the open timber. I had brought a trail cam with me to set up in a spot just after I reached the open timber. It was just about 10:00 when I reached the open timber. As I was setting up the trail cam, I heard a few shots that sounded like they were coming from or near the muskeg that Grandpa was going to. A couple of the shots were from a bigger gun and the last few sounded to be from a smaller gun. I knew Grandpa didn’t have a gun with him and he and I had seen some fresh people tracks on the main trail on our way up, so I figured it must have been them shooting. I continued up the valley after I had set up the trail cam. Not to long after I had left the trail cam, I remembered that there had been some fungi on a tree next to it that I had wanted to take some photos of, so I turned around and headed back and took some photos of it. After I had taken some photos of it, I headed back up the valley. I had been walking for a while and came up to a dry creek bed that I would normally cross to continue up the valley. This time though, just as I was about to head down to cross the creek, I heard what sounded like a snort. I knew deer made that noise some times, so I walked along the edge of the creek to see if I could see what made that noise. After a few steps I looked between a couple of trees and saw not a deer but a Brown Bear walking down the trail towards me. I said “Hey Bear!” it stopped and was looking in my direction, so I clapped my hands a few times and it turned around and ran back up the trail and into the bushes. I stood there for a few moments and one of my legs started bouncing up and down like sewing machine. I decided that I was not going to walk up the trail, and I didn’t want to stand around there for too long since I wasn’t sure if the bear was going to come back, so I went and crossed the west fork of Indian river and continued up the valley on the other side. After about fifteen minutes or so, I saw a deer on the opposite side of the river. I slowly walked to a log that was close by to try and take a head shot. I got to the log and took the shot but missed. The deer ran behind tree, so I went over the log to try and see if I could see the deer. Just after I got over the log the deer came back out and this time I took a free handed shot at the shoulder and hit it. It lunged and went down behind a log. I quickly got across the river to the deer and started cleaning it. I have never cleaned a deer faster in my entire life than I did that one. Since the bear had run back in the general direction of the deer and I was not sure how close the bear was, I did not want to be by the gut pile any longer than I had to. As soon as I was done gutting the deer, I carried the deer back across the river to put it in my backpack. While I was doing this I continually checked to see if the bear had come out to the gut pile, but I never saw it, so once the deer was in my pack I headed further up the valley.

After a while I crossed back across the river and continued to look for another deer. Since the one I had gotten was fairly small, I figured I could handle another one. I had been walking up the Gavan Hill side of the river for a bit, when I saw a deer standing in the trees behind a couple of bushes. I raised the rifle and shot; the deer took off and disappeared behind a tree, but it kept its tail down so I was pretty sure I had hit it. I tried to reposition myself so I could see the deer fall. As I was doing so I saw a deer. I figured it was the one I had already hit so I just stood there. It took off like nothing was wrong and disappeared behind a tree though, so I decided I must have missed it when I shot at it the first time. I walked up more to see if I could see it again and get a second shot. I walked up a bit more, saw a deer standing there and shot. That time I knew I had hit it. As I was walking up to it I saw a deer standing there. I left it alone since I only wanted to try to pack out two not three. Just after the deer trotted away, I came up and happened to look side ways around a tree and saw a deer lying there. I knew that I had not gone far enough to get to the last one I had shot at and hit so I figured this must have been the first one I had shot at and thought I missed. That meant there had been at least three deer there not one like I had first thought. Now instead of have two deer to pack out like I had planned I had three. I set my backpack down with the first one and took the rifle and walked up to find the third one. I found the third one laying down and was still alive, so I finished it off and dragged it back to the first one. I got both of them gutted and started packing them out. I planned to turn one of them into a backpack, have one across the front, and drag the third. It turns out that it is harder than I thought, so I ended up packing one on my back and dragging a second one behind me for a short ways then sat them down and went back and dragged the third one. After I had gotten them across the river, I stopped to eat lunch since it was just after 12:00. The distance I had left to the muskeg that Grandpa was picking cranberries in would have taken me probably 45 minutes to an hour to walk if I was only carrying a medium sized deer or something smaller. It took me three hours just to get to the edge of the muskegy area with the three deer. Since it was 3:00pm when I got there and I was supposed to meet Grandpa at the second bridge by 3:00, I stashed two of the deer and carried the third with me. I got to the second bridge by about 3:30. Grandpa was there waiting for me. I told him we had a situation. He asked what it was and I told him that I had accidentally shot three deer and two of them were still up at the upper end of the muskeg. We stashed our packs by the trail and headed back up there to get them since it was getting close to being dark. It gets dark about 4-4:30 this time of year. Grandpa and I got back to the lower end of the muskeg with the two deer just as the last of the light was starting to fade. Then we walked into the woods and it was like someone turned out the lights. I could just barely see the ground under my feet. All I could see around me were shapes. Just after we got into the woods, we stopped and rested on a log. Grandpa gave me an apple to eat so that I could get some fluids in me since I had drank the last of my water over three hours earlier. I felt better after I eating the apple, and after we rested there for a few more minutes we started off into the dark woods.

We stumbled around in the dark woods for over an hour before I decided to try to use the light from my phone screen to help us through the woods. We had already left the deer that Grandpa had been carrying because he was having too hard of a time staying balanced with it on his back in the black dark woods. It was just after 6:00pm when we finally made it back to the main trail – well down from where we had planned to catch it. After we got back to the trail, my spirits improved quite a bit. As we were walking down the trail and crossing a bridge that went over a creek that had salmon in it, we heard a big branch crack. Grandpa hollered “hey bear”. When he got to me he said he was pretty sure that was a bear, so we started talking louder. After a while I saw a light coming towards us. We got to it and found it was dad. After we told him our packs were still up the trail, he gave us a flash light and continued up the trail to get the packs. Grandpa and I continued down the trail with the flash light which was nice. Once we got to the car I dropped the deer off, rested a bit, then headed back up the trail to help dad with the packs. I meet him a bit before the bench muskeg. I got the backpack with my deer in it from him then headed back down the trail.

We got home just about 7:30pm and after we got all our wet stuff off and hung up it was 8:00pm. Even though I had rain gear on I was soaked. I could just about ring water out of my socks even though I had not gone over my boots and my rain pants were on the outside of them. The water was probably from sweating, and I didn’t even feel like I was sweating that much. Although after a while of carrying the deer, I just stopped noticing or caring about things like that. I had gotten some devil club thorns in my hand and I hadn’t felt a thing. I was up until 11:30pm cleaning the two deer.

The next morning at about 8:30am Grandpa and I left to go find the deer that we had left up there in the woods. We knew roughly where it was but not exactly where. We got to the second bridge and started looking for it since we were pretty sure it was up the river from there. I remembered that it seemed like we had left it down in a low spot by the river, so I headed over towards the river to look and Grandpa walked up the trail that went to the muskeg we had carried them out of. After a couple of minutes Grandpa said he found it. I walked over and there it was laying on the ground not even a 100 feet from the main trail and the part of the trail that we had intended to come out on. We however, had come out a couple hundred yards from there. We had to have walked across the there to get to where we had got onto the trail, but we couldn’t see that we were on the trail in the dark woods. I picked the deer up and carried it back to the car, then we headed home.

Last Saturday Dad, Rowan, and I went up Verstovia so that Dad could attempt to retake an old photo. It was a nice day for a hike it was sunny, but not too warm. It took us about two hours to get to picnic rock. We sat there and had lunch. While we were there I looked through my Binoculars over at the peak. Part way up the peak I notice there was a white spot there, and I realized that white spot was a Mountain goat. It was the first Mountain goat I had ever seen on Verstovia, so I took some photos of it.

After we were done eating lunch we headed down a trail that people take to go up to the top of the peak. As we walked down the trail I asked dad if I could side hill across to get a better look at the goat instead of going up to the shoulder with them. He said that was fine so after a little bit I split off and headed over towards the goat. I side hilled over to a rock field that was a bit below the goat. When I got there it took me a moment to refined the goat. Once I refound the goat I took some photos of it as it looked down at me from its perch on the cliff. After a bit I headed back across the side of the hill towards the trail to head back to picnic, which is where I told dad I would meet him and Rowan. On my way back I stopped and looked at plants and other things. When I was about half way back to the trail I saw a bird fly low to the ground strait towards me. It took me a few moments to figure out what it was. At first I thought it might be a Shorted-eared Owl, then I thought it was a Red-tailed Hawk. I did finally realize it was a Northern Harrier. I took some photos of it as it flew towards me then circled up over head. After the Harrier flew out of site I continued my way back to the trail and headed back to picnic rock. I got back to picnic rock and waited for a while for Dad and Rowan to get back. Once they did we rested for a bit then started down. On the way down we stopped and talked to someone for a while. While we were talking to them I saw Peregrine Falcon fly over headed.

It took us about an hour to get down after we stopped talking to the person.

Last Saturday dad, Rowan and I went for a hike up Bear mountain. We were at the trail head for beaver lake just after 8:00 am and headed up towards the lake just after that. We walked around part of the lake to a bench then went off the gravel trail and headed into the woods. It took us a couple of hours to get to tree line from the car. Once we got to tree line, we worked our way up the hill to a ridge that over looked a creek. When we got to the top of the ridge, just after noon, we sat down and ate lunch. After we were done with our lunch I went down to the creek to refill our water bottles. Once I had finished filling up our water bottles I walked back to our lunch spot and dropped the water bottles off. I then took one of my water bottles and headed further up the mountain while Rowan sat down at the edge of a pool below where we had lunch and dad headed off to a different hill across the creek. I walked up towards a couple of rocky points to see what was up there. I stopped and took photos of plants along the way. I had gotten around to the back side of the points when a guy and his dog got to me. He asked me to take a photo of him and his dog with his phone so I did. From there he continued up towards the saddle and I looked around the points some more. I walked down to a patch of ice/snow took some photos of it then started heading back since it was getting close to time to head back down. I got back to the pool where Rowan was a bit early so dad was not there yet. I sat down and talked to Rowan for a bit, eventually dad got back and the guy with the dog came by just after. After the guy had gone by dad said there were some Mountain Goats over on the cliffs across from where we were, so Rowan and I took photos of them. After we had taken some photos of them we started back towards tree line. On our way down I saw a couple of pipits and Savannah sparrows. We got to tree line and headed down to the car. We got to the car just before 6:00pm.