Mostly cloudy, sun broke through occasionally. Temperatures in the 40s, breezy out of the north.
I went for a drive out the road this afternoon.
95 Barrow’s Goldeneye at the mouth of Starrigavan Creek were the most I’ve seen this year. It could be some have come from further south, or maybe they’re moving around locally.
(GooshuÌḵ jinkaat ̱ḵa keijiÌn hinyikgaÌaxu G̱aÌjaa HeÌen waÌtx’ aÌwu ← practicing LingiÌt, probably not totally correct and might not even be sensible)
On a stop at Sea Mart I saw a Raven fly up with a clump of what looked like surf grass. Two other ravens chased it around.
By the time I grabbed my camera and got out of the car, I didn’t see the chase happening. However, I did notice one raven on the rocks below Pioneer Park and next to it was the clump of grass.
It messed around with it for a few moments before taking off. When it did, one of the other ravens (there were at least two or three in the vicinity) started chasing it. They flew several circles overhead, with a third joining in the chase briefly. They flew further up the shoreline and too far away for me to try to keep up with following them visually.
I’m guessing the ravens were playing chase more for fun. If the other ravens had actually wanted the grass, they presumably would have continued after it when it had fallen to the ground instead of waiting to pick up the chase again later.
I watched the channel. There were probably two or three hundred gulls there, so well down from what it had been. I imagine many have moved out to where herring are spawning.
I saw no swans at Swan Lake. Though I hadn’t taken a look specifically to check, I hadn’t noticed them there the past couple of days. Before I had seen them near the peninsula even when I was driving along Halibut Point Road. It seems like they left over the weekend.
The paper reported the first opening of the herring fishery happened at Aleutkina today.