Overcast with very minor sun breaks. Temperatures in the 40s. Light winds. Snow level overnight down to around 2000 fete or less.
I had a couple of errands to run this morning, including getting the summer Mycoblitz collections sent off.
While out, I drove to Starrigavan, then checked the channel and Castle Hill.
The Black Scoter reported at Starrigavan yesterday was still around. Also Barrow’s Goldeneyes. I think the only expected wintering species I haven’t yet seen are Trumpeter Swans, Common Goldeneye, and Red-breasted Mergansers.
Gulls continue to flock to the channel. I imagine long-line season will be wrapping up soon, and they’ll disperse.
Castle Hill was quiet while I watched. I didn’t see any song birds other than a flock of European Starlings.
I’m continuing to feel a bit off, though less tired than yesterday. I imagine I’m fighting off illness, but other than fatigue and/or needing extra rest, symptoms have been mild.
I worked on ibutton data this evening. Some of the sites had obviously erroneous data due to malfunctioning ibuttons. The worst was a year of lost data for the Indian River forest site. It would have been much less if I had take a closer look at the data when I collected it. The ibutton was malfunctioning for several months (I think I collected data from it twice) before finally dying.
The more subtle data issues probably mostly impact the Indian River muskeg site. It’s pretty clear that at times there was direct sunlight that heated the ibutton up well above air temperature. I think worst case this would impact maybe a few hours on a sunny day during peak summer. Excluding these data points (or at least making note of them) could be tedious. My thought as an automated approach is to look at unexpectedly large temperature changes between measurements.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
