This Sunday’s outing was a walk of the Starrigavan Recreation area foot trails.
Starting from Old Sitka parking lot, we walked the Ben Grussendorf (Forest and Muskeg) trail, around the Estuary Life Trail, and then the Mosquito Cove loop.
All in it was about 3.7 miles.
Weather was sunny and pleasant, though the breeze was cool. Fortunately, most of the time we were out of the breeze and able to enjoy the warmth of the sun.
It seems like every year the muskegs take longer to green up than I expect – you would think that after 15 years of this, my expectations would have shifted.
At least these days I’m not surprised by it, but spring is slower to arrive. I am uncertain why this might be the case, but perhaps it is due to saturated soils taking longer to warm up and no canopy cover to reduce radiation cooling on clear nights.
Another curiosity I have about the muskegs is how the shore pines grow in the kind of umbrella shapes. In higher productivity sites, they don’t really grow this way.
Along the estuary trail a Hairy Woodpecker flew close and worked its way up an alder tree, but I didn’t spot the Red-tailed Hawk that’s been reported out there by multiple people recently (one person reported seeing one carrying nesting materials).
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
