Birds, Whales, and Sunset Tidepooling

Mostly cloudy, becoming mostly clear by this evening. Calm winds through much of the day. Light winds out of the north this evening.

I watched the gulls from the ramp in front of UAS this morning while on a call.

There were lots of gulls, but I didn’t spot any of the unusual ones.

Several eagles were perched at various points along the Japonski Island shoreline. I’m not sure what drew them there, but they would scatter nearby gulls when they took off from time to time.

Before heading home, I drove out the road. While scanning from Kerr’s Island pullout, I spotted whales bubble-net feeding out by Little Gavanski Island. They were much too far out for good views, but a couple boats in the area were probably enjoying the whales.

I spent much of the afternoon working on some recent collections.

Among them were a possible bryozoan on some seaweed, two collections of Riccardia (uncertain whether they are the same species or not), a Hypogymnia on a spruce twig, three or four lichens on an alder twig, Belpharostoma tricophyllum, and Kurzia.

I followed up by spending a much of my later evening processing the photos (primarily doing the focus stacks).

In between, I went out to Little Magic Island for low tide. The tide ended up being a -2 (nearly a foot lower than predicted) at 7pm. I didn’t make it out as early as I might have liked. The sun was still up when I left a few minutes before 7.

The sun dropped behind a bank of fog laying across Kruzof Island as I walked down on the beach.

At first there seemed to be enough light for photos, but I underestimated how quickly light would fade. Soon it was getting dim and I hadn’t brought a light other than my phone. I did use the light on my phone for a few minutes, but I didn’t want to submerge it (though it should be waterproof, it didn’t seem worth the risk).