Mostly sunny early, becoming overcast by early afternoon.
I went for a walk to Swan Lake and Castle Hill this morning. The gulls seem to be favoring Swan Lake and the senior housing near the lake more in the past couple of weeks. I wonder if this is due to the salmon basically being gone from Indian River. Once the longline season finishes up, I expect the number of gulls hanging around will drop significantly.
I checked Hemlock and Spruce street, then went down to the DeArmond Street neighborhood. I saw a few juncos, but not too much. There are some maple trees in those neighborhoods. I wonder if they attract late/vagrant warblers or other song birds. I didn’t see any today.
I dropped down to Katlian and noticed what might have been a form of Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds to the northwest. I watched and took pictures as they settled.
Along Kaagwaantaan street I saw more juncos and some sparrows.
Castle Hill was quiet. I didn’t see the kinglet or warbler I saw yesterday.
This afternoon I took Gavin M. (the visiting Scientist in Residence) out to Katlian Bay road. We talked about what we were seeing on the slopes visible from the viewpoint.
I noticed mountain ash trees across the bay. Also some sort of electronic installation with solar panels. I’m not sure if it’s a little weather station or perhaps a base station for higher accuracy GPS (in support of the Katlian Road project), but I’m curious.
We went up Harbor Mountain road, but found the third gate was closed. I imagine the zero gate will be closed soon.
After dropping Gavin off, I went to Verstovia trail with just enough daylight left for a walk and talk. I stopped to make some observations on the way up and it took me just over 30 minutes to the first view point. Had I not stopped for the observations, I think it would have been closer to 25 minutes. Slower than earlier in the year. With recent low levels of activity and how I felt last week, I was expecting to suffer a bit. However it ended up being a pace that felt comfortable.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
