Clear and cool. Temperatures into the 30s after lightly freezing overnight. Very windy in Silver Bay.
Another early morning.
Gusty winds were apparent after I turned the corner from Whale Park on my way to Sawmill Cove.
Williaws and spray blowing up off the water were frequent sightings while I watched the bay.
In Sawmill Cove it wasn’t too windy at first. It picked up as the morning went on, peaking in the afternoon before diminishing as the sun set. The wind blew from almost every direction at some point during the day. There were somewhat sustained periods of it blowing out of the cove, blowing into the cove, and blowing across the cove from Verstovia towards Bear Mountain side.
Standing out in the wind for hours, I was somewhat amused to see on my phone that current conditions reported in Sitka (at the airport) were light and variable 3mph. Checking the weather observations, I see that hourly reports were similar for much of the day except one reading in the afternoon with N10 G26.
It was a very different story out the road.
Not long after the sun got high enough to clear Lucky Chance peaks, I watched a Common Murre foraging not far from the shore where I was standing. A dozen or more small fish would break the surface and moments later the murre would pop up. I wasn’t able to get a picture of the fish.
Later in the day I saw more diving birds. Perhaps they got the word that there was food in the area. Short-billed Gulls seemed to be following the diving birds and I imagine grabbing fish as they popped up trying to get away from the divers (it was hard to say for sure).
A Harbor Seal popped up at the mouth of Sawmill Creek several times. I wonder if it was in the area most of the day, even though I didn’t see it quite that often (it would have been easy to overlook, as when I did observe it, it didn’t raise its head very high, and didn’t stay at the surface for long).
Kent saw a Killer Whale coming and going out from Bear Cove. Presumably it came into and left the bay, but I didn’t spot it. The waves and blowing spray would have made it easy to miss if it traveled closer to the Sugarloaf side.
He later saw a Humpback Whale breach. I imagine it also came and went, or perhaps it was down the bay all day. Either way, there was just the one sighting.
I saw Prasiola growing on rocks. It’s the earliest I’ve noticed it growing. (Though I don’t usually spend much time at the beach this time of year.)
I was not back into town in time to check for a green flash. I did stop to take pictures of the nice color with the lighthouse silhouetted.
At home I realized I had forgotten something at my observing location, so I drove back out the road. I was surprised at how calm the bay was after there had been so much wind all day.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
