On a Lifelong Journey to Learn my Place
Animals
With my parents in town for a short visit and Alaska Day festivities (namely, the parade), it was a pretty full day. My dad wanted to check out a patch of cranberries he had noted this summer along Beaver Lake trail. The only time really had for that was this morning before the parade, so … Read more
I’ve been hearing about sea star wasting disease for a year or two, mostly in the context of it devastating some populations along the west coast of Washington, Oregon, and California. However, there has been on-going monitoring for it here. Until the past couple of weeks, there appeared to be only a low level of … Read more
I was walking down DeGroff street a little after 5pm this evening and at the intersection with Baranof Street noticed the distinctive sounds of an Anna’s Hummingbird calling/singing. On multiple prior occasions Connor had told me that he had seen/heard Anna’s Hummingbirds at this location, but this was the first time I had. I was … Read more
Of course the highlight of today was getting to photograph a Northern Mockingbird (which I posted about separately), but before that there was a wander around Lower Gavan Trail looking for mushrooms and whatever else turned up. There were a few mushrooms around, but I was also interested to hear an Anna’s Hummingbird that was … Read more
Last Friday I was visiting with Larry, another pizza-day regular, over lunch at the Backdoor and he happened to mention that there had been an unfamiliar bird in their yard. From his description of a bird with white outer tail feathers and white on its wings (he thought primaries), it didn’t sound like a very … Read more
Banded Dark-eyed Junco with Left leg Red over Black and Right leg Aluminum over White; it’s been reported only four times since it was first banded, the most recent before this week was back on 25 March 2013. Over the past couple of weeks, the number of juncos visiting the bird food in our yard … Read more