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 wasting-like symptoms observed around Sitka sound. However, in the past couple of weeks it seems as though the disease has started hitting hard in at least some areas near town. I took a look at Sealing Cove during a (not very low) tide this past week to see if I could see any signs there.

From one of the ramps I saw what at first I thought might be a bare rock, but after a moment or two realized that it didn’t really make sense for there to be bare rocks there, and not only that but there seemed to be a bit of a purplish cast to them. They seemed to be the size of sunflower stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides), and I concluded that I was probably seeing the remains of a couple that had died from the wasting disease (which has apparently been found to strike this species first).

The Sitka Sound Science Center has been helping with the effort to monitor and on their weblog you can find more information on sea star wasting around Sitka as well as information about who to contact if you observe it happening.

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With this past weekend’s full moon (which I only saw briefly through the clouds) we had another nice low tide series. I didn’t end up braving the rain to make it down to the beach, but thought I would share this photo from a low tide at John Brown’s Beach earlier this summer. The Pygmy Rock Crab (Glebocarcinus oregonensis) is, as the name implies, fairly small. This one was maybe an inch and a half across the top. It’s also distinguished in part by its bumpy carapace (main shell). I don’t yet have enough experience to know how common (or at least easy to find) they are, but my impression is they are not unusual. Also, it’s my understanding that the brighter red highlights (seen in the photo above) are not typical, with most being a more uniform brick red color.

Questions:

• How common are these crabs?
• Where else can they be found around Sitka?
• What do they eat?
• What eats them?
• How long do they live?

More photos of Pygmy Rock Crabs from that day at the beach.

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Lion’s Mane Jellyfish (Cyanea capillata) seem to be fairly common around Sitka. Sometimes they wash up on shore dead (which is how I usually find them), but this one was fun to watch as it moved up and down through the water column while slowly drifting on the current past Magic Island.

This jellyfish can give painful stings to humans, and I’ve heard about some kind of miserable seine hauls that were full of these (instead of the salmon they hoped for) with tentacles raining down on the hapless crew member assigned to stack the net (at least I think that’s the one that ended up in the tentacle shower – I’m not so familiar with seining operations and I may have misremembered).

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Recently the water in Silver Bay has been exceptionally green, almost like it was seeing glacial run-off. I recall this happening last year as well, and at the time I noticed it I wondered if maybe it was dust from all the blasting and rock work being done on Sawmill Creek Road and for the Blue Lake dam project. When talking to some others about it, I was told about coccolithophores, a single-celled (mostly marine) algae that can turn waters blue-green color when they are abundant. Giving the seasonal timing of the color change along with the fact that rock work is greatly diminished this year (the road is done, and the dam is getting closer), it seems far more likely an explanation than rock dust from blasting. That said, it does raise some other questions for me.

In any event it’s a good time, especially with these sunny days, to get out and enjoy the newly completed road and separated bicycle/pedestrian path with normally amazing view now intensified by the colorful waters.

Questions:

• Does anyone else remember noticing this happen before last year (I don’t)?
• If it did not happen in prior years, what has changed? (Last year was exceptionally sunny during the summer, but this year has been quite rainy.)
• Why does the bloom seem mostly limited to Silver Bay and nearby locations where the blue-green likely originated in Silver Bay?
• Are there other places in the broader Sitka area where this is occurring?

We drove out the road today to check on the Swainson’s Thrush nest, but couldn’t see any birds using the nest. There were however many birds active in the brushy area adjacent to the road. Several thrushes were utilizing the ripe elderberries that were abundant on one large bush. In addition there were other smaller song birds such as juncos, chickadees, and warblers foraging in both the brush as well as the taller trees behind.

After spending a little time looking along the road, we went to the south beach of Halibut Point Rec to catch what was left of low tide. There were some interesting things going on there, most of which I’ll post about on their own separately. Highlights included Marbled Murrelets close to shore, ripe trailing currants (Ribes laxiflorum), and various intertidal creatures. There were a couple of kids (accompanied an adult) fishing for rock fish.

This morning we went down to the science center for a brief talk followed up by beach walk. The talk focused on possible effects of climate change on intertidal life, highlighting some of the results seen during the speaker’s PhD research in California. The speaker is one of two resident fellows (SIRF) at the science center along with her husband.

Fog persisted into the morning, and as we walked down to the beach around 9am, we could only barely make out the large cruise ship anchored in the bay, and everything beyond was flat gray. Shortly thereafter, parts of the sky became brighter and the fog lifted a bit. It appeared that blue sky might reach us as the clouds dissipated, however it was not to be – they hung over town throughout the day.

Down at the beach I investigated a bit more closely the sea grasses, and noted a patch of surf grass (Phyllospadix serratulus) at the base of Sage Rock. For some reason I hadn’t previously noted that, as it presumably (in my mind) just blended in with extensive eel grass (Zostera marina) beds.

It seemed like Connor and (especially) Rowan enjoyed having some other kids down there to look around with, and I certainly had some interesting conversations about intertidal life and some of the mysteries there.

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While at John Brown’s Beach during a recent low tide series, I noticed a distinct contrast between the new addition to the breakwater and that which had been there a while. I guess I am not surprised that there are differences, but it was interesting to see just how easy it was to see them.

Questions:

• Is green algae on the new breakwater the full compliment of green algae expected at those intertidal levels, or is it a reduced (or maybe even completely different) set of early colonizers that give way others that colonize later but are ultimately more competitive?
• What factors effect how/when different seaweeds to colonize a new area?
• Do early colonizers in some way ‘prepare’ the substrate for later arrivals?
• What role does the fauna play in the establishment and/or maintenance of various species of marine algae?
• What is a typical (if there is one) successional sequence for new intertidal habitat?

On many occasions I’ve noticed Ochre stars (Pisaster ochraceus) gathered up together in semi-protected rock crevices. It’s easy to imagine they do that because it’s a good place to stay together and have protection from pounding surf when thee tide is at that level, and the effects of drying when the tide drops lower. However, on a recent trip to John Brown’s Beach, I noticed several star clusters on the flat gravel beach near the gazebo dock. I am not sure why these have gathered like this, protection from the effects of drying seems plausible. However, it amuses me to think they might also be social creatures who like to get together for a chat (or whatever passes for such in the ochre star world).

Ochre Star cluster questions:

• What is the purpose of their clustering?
• How do they find each other and gather up?
• Do the same individuals end up in the same group?
• How long does the gathering last (more than one tide cycle)?
• How far does an ochre star travel over the course of its life?
• (How) Do ochre stars communicate with each other?

Last week Rowan found a small white nudibranch at John Brown’s Beach. It was one I had not seen before (which isn’t not particularly notable, since I haven’t spent a lot of time on marine life), but it seemed reasonably distinctive. However, it was not quite as easy to figure out as I had hoped. After some effort looking through the books, I came up with Hudson’s Dorid (Acanthodoris hudsoni). The frosted white tips of relatively conical shaped somethings – [I don’t actually know what they’re called], together with white (instead of red) gills, seemed like a good match. I hope to get this confirmed, but would be happy to get corrected.

Something else I noticed in my photos (though not at the time) were little spiral shaped things in among the conical shaped somethings. I’m not sure if their occurrence there was coincidental, or if they were actually associated with the nudibranch in a more direct way. I’ve been told they are diatoms, and a little searching on the internet turned up some pretty interesting high magnification photos of other spiral shaped diatoms.

Today was the first low tide that seemed like a good spring tide. It wasn’t all that low at a predicted -1.2 or so, but it occurred in daylight hours in the morning. Rowan likes to search for things at the beach, so I joined her for a while this morning and managed to find something of interest myself. Late this afternoon I got a second hand report of a Killdeer, so decided to walk down to the park and see if it might be around. At the time I was thinking the tide was higher than it ended up being. I was not too motivated to really search the flats (especially with a chilly breeze blowing out of the west), and did not find it. On the other hand, I did see several moths on buildings during my walk – the first of the year for me. They were all the same species, one I’ve seen before, but don’t yet have a confirmed id for.

Today also marks the end of the first quarter of 2014 in my (fairly arbitrary) system of organizing photos by days within quarters within years. Unlikely any year in the past 6 or 7, I actually managed to do pretty well getting things posted in a timely fashion. I still have a handful of days to post pictures from, but it’s nice to actually be fairly close to caught up (at least for this year – I still have a backlog of over 20,000 photos to edit and post going back to summer 2008). Historically the second quarter (April-June) is the one in which I take the most pictures (followed closely by July-October), and it gets much harder to keep up. Today was actually was a good example of why; I took over 200 pictures and so far have edited them down to under 50 (much of the reduction is deleting shots that are essentially duplicates – I just choose the sharpest of the bunch), but still have more editing to do. I also prefer to get identifications for things before posting, at least if there’s a reasonable possibility of doing so. This being the case, as I post this initially, there’s only one photo in the gallery (showing below). Over the coming days I’ll upload the other photos and they’ll automatically be added. Several of them will also show up in separate posts about some of the things that I saw and thought had something worth highlighting in its own post.

Update: So it’s now the last day of November 2014, and I finally uploaded the most of the remaining photos from this day. I’m hoping to get the handful I have left uploaded in the next few days after getting an identification, but of course it’s been 8 months since the last time I said ‘over the coming days…’

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See below for update

Last Sunday I took these pictures of cormorants on a rock at the junction between Krestof Sound, Nakwasina Passage, and Olga and Neva Straits. At the time I didn’t notice anything particularly unusual, just thought I would grab photos to take a closer look later. Upon reviewing the pictures at home, I noticed one cormorant that looked different than the others. I am not certain what species it is.

It stood out initially because of the color on the lower base of the bill – at first I thought perhaps it just had something near the top of its throat that was stretching things out, but as I considered it more, I became less convinced by that explanation. It could be the angle, but the bird seems to be a bit more robust in head and neck than the surrounding Pelagic Cormorants. The bill also seems distinctly more yellow to me.

Double-crested Cormorants are not uncommon around here, but I would expect them to have a bill that was clearly thicker and more yellow than this one. Red-faced Cormorant (of which there are only a couple reports from Sitka – their range is west of year) should have red on its face, which this one doesn’t have. The other species to consider is Brandt’s Cormorant. They can be fairly abundant at times in southern Southeast (in the Ketchikan area, for example) – but their status in the Sitka area is a bit murky. Brandt’s Cormorants as shown in the field guide have a pale bit just at the top of the throat which doesn’t seem particularly in evidence on this bird. However, other photos I found on-line don’t always have that pale patch showing clearly, so that’s not necessarily a deal breaker.

At this point I’m uncertain whether this individual is just an odd looking Pelagic Cormorant or something else. I would welcome any comments one way or the other.

Update: For some reason I forgot that Pelagic Cormorants develop more than just a white patch during breeding season. I guess I haven’t actually seen that many in full breeding (they tend to hang out more in less protected waters during the summer) – but I do have a photo of one that is included below. In any case, it was pointed out to me by S. Heinl that this odd cormorant is probably just getting color in its face – it’s just an early developer compared to its peers, apparently.

Today someone on Facebook shared a link to the NOAA ShoreZone Press Release announcing all of Southeast Alaska had been imaged for the ShoreZone project. This project had the goal of flying over much of the coastline in Alaska, including all of Southeast, at extreme low tides and getting photographic imagery of the shorelines. A couple of years heard about the projected and looked at some of the imagery for Kruzof Island, but at the time there was a great deal still to be finished.

I spent a little time today looking through some places. I found the interface is a little clunky in some respects, but perhaps would have found it a little more straightforward to begin with had I actually looked at the tutorials (though I still haven’t looked at them, so I can’t be sure. However, there is a huge amount of pretty detailed imagery (the press release says they mapped over 19,000 miles in Southeast alone).

I have been curious about the land that separates Necker Bay from Whale Bay after flying over it a couple of years ago, so I took a look at it. The photo that leads this post was one I pulled from the site of the southern most Guibert Islet from down that way. I’m curious about what is growing on it, as I imagine conditions can be pretty harsh out there during storms.

Another part of the project is the ShoreZone-Fish Atlas-ShoreStation which has species lists of fish and intertidal organisms (which seemed to have a focus on seaweeds) for a large number of stations throughout Southeast. I think that will be a useful resource for continuing to compile species occurrence and distribution information on the Southeast Alaska natural history wiki.

Alaska ShoreZone Website

Site for finding and looking ShoreZone Imagery

NOAA ShoreZone site

What I found was the data doesn’t stack up quite with my memory.

Plot of wave heights at Station 46084 summer-fall of 2010 and 2011. Click on graph for larger version

What I remember most clearly from fall 2010 is September being relatively calm. I’m thinking it was fairly calm over a couple of weeks, at least, and that inspired me to arrange for a boat trip out off Cape Edgecumbe (and someday I will get the photojournal entry posted for it) on 21 September. That date is marked by the vertical line. Or course that day the wind kicked up and there was 4 ft chop. It was not terrible out there, but it also wasn’t nearly the calm conditions as on other days. Of course this September we were buffeted by at least a couple of significant storms, including a pretty good one the beginning of September and an even bigger one (with 60mph winds) the third week. In addition, things had started to pick up even before that in August.

Compared to 2010, the end of September and most of October was relatively mild at the buoy in 2011. While not exactly calm – seas never really dropped below 5 feet – neither was it too brutal, as it was late October before the wave height got over 15 feet. November of both years seems qualitatively similar, at least for the data that is available. The buoy stopped recording data in November 2010 and was not repaired until spring 2011. As of this posting, the December 2011 has not yet been posted on the site.

As far as the summers go, it looks like 2011 had more consistent conditions from June to mid-August than 2010. It’s a little hard to tell strictly from the wave height data what things might have been like out on the water – a 5 foot high frequency/steep chop is going to feel a bit different than a 5 foot swell with it’s low frequency movements. The current reporting gives an indication of the steepness of the waves, but that’s not included directly in the historical data. I suspect it can be derived from the spectrum data, but I’ve not tried to figure out how to work with that.

In any case, I have concluded that my mistaken impressions of the differences between 2010 and 2011 are probably due primarily to a couple of different factors. First, the storms started nearly a month earlier in 2011, and the early storms this year were more dramatic in town than many fall/winter storms due to a different wind direction. Second, my impression of Fall 2010 is probably more correctly an impression of Winter 2010-2011. During this period I was able to get out on a boat trip at least once a month, with conditions being pretty reasonable each time. Since we’re just heading into that time period for this year, it may yet turn out to be similar this year. Unfortunately since the buoy was not functioning correctly last winter I won’t be able to check on my impressions.

While writing the post about Sea Otters I was reminded that despite having good resources for getting started, I still hadn’t managed to get anything up on the wiki about algae, marine or freshwater. So today I found my copy of “Field Guide to Seaweeds of Alaska” (see also the website at seaweedsofalaska.com) and started adding species that were said to occur in Southeast. The book indicates there are about 550 species known from the state, but it has accounts for mostly common species, perhaps 150-170 total. So far I’ve created pages for a little over 100 species and made it through the green and brown algae, and partway through the red algae. I think by the time I’m done going through this reference I’ll have about 140 or so species. I’m pretty sure I have at least one other reference that might include more species for Southeast, and at some point I’ll go through it as well. I’m curious about how many of the 550 species known for the state occur in Southeast – my guess is it’s a large majority of them.

I didn’t really spend much time with any of the species since I mostly just wanted to get the name and taxonomic information in quickly. The field guide does have nice photos of most species, and brief but informative accounts of range, habitat, and similar species. I was interested to notice that in at least a couple of cases species (or sets of species) were listed twice – I guess I had heard that different stages of seaweed life cycles can look different, but I hadn’t really thought about what that might mean in practice. Apparently in some cases different stages were formerly considered different species. I’m not sure how it was determined they were different stages, but it might be interesting to find out. One in particular I remember is the Tar Spot Alga (Mastocarpus spp.) – it is said to be the “alternate reproductive phase (tetrasporophyte) of Turkish washcloth.” I’m not sure what that means exactly, but I also was quite interested to find out that this phase can live to over 90 years.

Working on these has helped me to get a mental framework which will help me have a better sense of what I’m looking at down on the beach. Mostly I’ve not paid too much attention, but now that I’ve started to get a sense of what’s around and what things look like, I feel like I might be a bit less likely to just gloss over what I’m seeing down on the beach. I’m also feeling inspired to maybe get a wetsuit and start doing some swimming/snorkling and shallow underwater exploration.

Over the past couple of decades or more, sea otters numbers have increased dramatically in Sitka Sound. When I was growing up, I don’t remember seeing any sea otters until probably the early or mid-90s, and that was up close to Salisbury Sound. These days, it’s not hard to find rafts of 100 or more individuals at a few locations not far from town, and singles or small groups are common in most locations with at least a moderate amount of exposure to the open ocean, including right off shore of Halibut Point Road from Sea Mart to Halibut Point. I’ve also seen them on occasion in the channel and just out from Crescent Harbor. (Though, now that I think about it, I don’t really recall seeing them in highly protected inside channels, though I imagine they move through such places at times.)

Sea otters are well known as keystone species – and as would be expected, the kelp patches have been increasing in size over the last several years. I did not actually pay enough attention to such things when I was growing up to clearly notice the difference, but I suspect some interesting work could be done (and perhaps has been) using aerial photos for comparison. (For those who aren’t familiar with the story – Sea otters are voracious predators of invertebrates, including species that graze on the kelp species that form kelp forests – when sea otters are gone, these grazers are able to keep the kelp mowed down quite effectively.)

Sea otters are of concern to some fisherman because they are voracious predators of species targeted for commercial and subsistence harvest – especially in dive fisheries. There has also been some news lately about efforts to change some of the policies regarding the allowable sale of sea otter skins by Natives (who are allowed to hunt them, but currently are only allowed to sell finished products made from the skins, but not the skins themselves). Given the large and still increasing population, and its impacts on some invertebrate fisheries, as well as the potential economic benefits to sea otter hunters, it’s my understanding that some feel the time is right to reduce some of the restrictions on sale of sea otter products to encourage a higher harvest and perhaps help keep the population from continuing to grow so fast. As with herring this quickly gets into politics and economics – things I’m disinclined to get too involved in.

A question that has come to my mind recently is whether or not the sea otters might have something to do with the increasing abundance of herring. Kelp forests are said to be important for many species, including rearing habitat for the juvenile stages of some fish. I’m uncertain whether herring utilize kelp forests at any stage other than spawning, or to what extent spawning that occurs in/around kelp forests might be influenced relative to a situation where the kelp was not present in that location. I made a cursory look for information about herring life cycle, but wasn’t able to find anything too detailed to convince me one way or another. If anyone has information or ideas about on what impact, if any, returning kelp forests have on herring recruitment and survival, I would definitely be interested in hearing about it.

Herring spawning was taking place at Sage Beach. Connor joined the gulls in trying to take advantage of the opportunity, and managed to come home with several fish.

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Herring spawning activity brought birds and Connor to Sage Rock in hopes of catching some fish.

Herring spawn turns the water pale and results in foam being pushed up on the rocky shore.

The Pyramids rise behind Crescent Bay where gulls obscure the view of fishing boats in town for the herring fishery.

When fish get near the surface, gulls quickly fly in to try and get a meal before the fish dive down again.

Herring weather is the name given to spring days when sun and squalls move through with snow, rain, and hail. Here a squal is obscuring the Pyramids, though not Mt. Kincaid.

Connor's catch of herring. He will freeze them to be used as bait for halibut when his grandpa visits later in the year.

Connor's catch of herring. He will freeze them to be used as bait for halibut when his grandpa visits later in the year.

This March has seemed quite dry, with cold temperatures early on and warming later in the month (though still freezing at night). Looking back at the March 2011 weather record for the Sitka Airport, it looks like the cold weather was mostly in February, with only a day or two of particularly frigid conditions. It has been exceptionally dry, however. Rain is falling now and nearly 1/3 of an inch has accumulated in the 3 hours since midnight, but even so – only 1.17 inches has fallen so far (including so far today) and it’s highly unlikely another 4.5 inches will fall in the next 45 hours to bring the total up the the 5.78 inch long-term monthly average. Lack of rain along with relatively cool temperatures have resulted in low levels at both hydro facilities, so the city as asked citizens to reduce power consumption to avoid running the large diesel generators used to supplement power when necessary. Hopefully the current rains help alleviate that problem somewhat.

It seems like many things are running a little late this year as compared to the recent past. I have not seen any wild flowers blooming, but with the recent warmer temperatures and sun, I expect to find blueberries or salmonberries in flower any day. Insects have started showing up – I saw a Snow Sedge (Psychoglypha sp) flying around within the last couple of days. There have also been other flies I do not yet know how to identify.

Herring are starting to mature, and it’s likely the first opening will happen today or tomorrow, at least a week after last year’s. Perhaps they have been waiting for ‘herring weather’ – the mix of snow/rain/sleet/hail/sun/wind changing every 5 minutes that seems to often mark the herring spawn. Until this point it’s been mild with partly to mostly cloudy skies, relatively light winds and little precipitation of any form. The forecast indicates wind, rain, and possibly snow in the forecast through the end of the week. In any case, there are many whales, sea lions, seals, eagles, gulls, and other birds cruising the near shore waters looking for herring schools to feast on. It’s a fun time to be out near the water watching the activity – Connor said a whale even came up close to Sage Rock this morning.

On the bird front – Song Sparrows have started singing in earnest. I was out at 5:30am last week and was surprised to hear so many singing around town well before sunrise. Migrants so far consist of gulls and robins. It would be interesting to know where all the robins that have showed up recently spent the winter, but it certainly seems like more are around in the last week or so, so I believe they have come from somewhere south. I think Dark-eyed Juncos have started to disperse, as I’m not seeing flocks of them as commonly around the neighborhood.

It was a lovely late winter/early spring day with partly cloudy skies and calm conditions. I was able to get out for a trip birding by boat. We went from town out to checkout the waters by Low Island, then along the Kruzof shoreline and into Port Krestof before coming back to town.

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A juvenile gull tries for scraps from a feeding Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris). Observed from Sea Mart parking lot.

Early in January I noticed a Sea Otter feeding in the kelp patch right off the Sea Mart Parking lot. The juvenile gull pictured here followed it around pretty closely, presumably hoping to grab a scrap or two from what the otter was eating. Unfortunately, the light and distance were such that I could not make out what the otter was eating, but I imagine it was some sort of echinoderm or mollusc. While I was watching, it didn’t appear that the gull managed to get anything and it eventually drifted away from the otter.

A juvenile gull tries for scraps from a feeding Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris). Observed from Sea Mart parking lot.

The kids and I took a walk down to the beach around sunset.

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Rowan was happy with the the clam shell she found on t he beach.

Rowan found this shell on the beach and insisted that I photograph it.

Three of five Harbor Seals observed near shore on 1 October 2007 at Totem Park.

Back on the first of October, I mentioned seeing interesting Harbor Seal behavior while at Totem Park.

The photo above shows three of the 5 seals I saw in the same confined area while at the park that day. Though it is not possible to tell from the photo directly, the water they are in is no more than 10 feet deep, and probably closer to 5 or 6 feet. One of the seals is shown holding its nose pointed up out of the water and into the wind. At various times at least three of them did this, and that is what caught my attention.

After an experience in Summer 2006 where seals unexpectedly climbed up rocky islets and the later realization that it was due to Killer Whales in the area, I have tried to keep in mind that, as prey of rather effective hunters, seals must be quite wary, lest they become lunch in a possibly lingering and presumably painful fashion. So that is what came to mind as I observed behavior that very much reminded me of other terrestrial mammals testing the breeze with their nose. In the days that followed, I heard of at least two different reports that Killer Whales had been seen near town over the same time period. Though the sightings I heard about were not in Eastern Channel or closer to the park, the Killer Whales in local waters range widely, often entirely out of Sitka Sound, so it would not be surprising at all for them to be move several miles over the course of hours and days.

An important question that needs to be considered is whether seals even have a decent sense of smell. If not, then it would seem quite unlikely that they were smelling the breeze. Though hardly authoritative, a quick Google search turned up several sites that said Harbor Seals do have a very good sense of smell. This was typically mentioned in the context of a mother’s ability to smell her pup, but I can’t imagine the sense of smell would be so specialized as to only apply in this context.

Finally, there is also a question of whether or not Killer Whales give off an odor that the seals could identify on the breeze. I have never been near Killer Whales when they are breathing, so I do not for sure. It seems fairly likely that they do, however. Humpback Whales certainly do and it’s not clear to me why they would by Killer Whales would not. Perhaps someone who has had close encounters with Killer Whales can leave a comment about their breath.

While interesting, none of this really proves in any way that the seals I saw were sniffing out Killer Whales. Certainly they hang out in the shallows fairly often. I do not remember seeing them stick their noses up before, but then there are lots of things I miss. Still, the evidence seems suggestive to me, and I will certainly keep my eyes open for Killer Whales if I ever see seals acting like this again.

My first memories of Marbled Murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus) come from a time long before I even knew their name. I grew up in Sitka and it’s only natural to get out on the water when you live in a town like this. Over the course of my youth, I went on many outings with family and friends that including hunting and fishing trips, as well as picnics and other excuses to get out of town. Through these boat trips, I came to expect small brown birds that almost always dove down rather than taking off as the boat approached. It seems strange to me now, that I never was more curious about them then. I suppose I may have asked my dad what they were, but I do not recall what answer he would have given me, if any. Now that I am back in Sitka as an adult with a keen interest in learning about the natural world, the Marbled Murrelets have special place in my understanding, as they are one of a few species of plant or animal that I have clear recollections of from my youth.

My (re)introduction to Marbled Murrelets really came this past summer as I worked with Allen Marine Tours as a naturalist. It did not take me long to figure out what they were and put together some basic facts about them. Somewhere along the way, probably due to their status as an at risk species in the lower-48 states, I learned that they nest in Old-growth Forests. I knew they are in the Alcid family, and related to other sea birds like the puffins, murres, and auklets. This summer I also learned that they can nest up to 30 miles inland. Beyond that, and the brief anecdotes from my youth, I still did not know much about these birds.

Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to listen to a talk about Marbled Murrelets given by Matt Kirchhoff, a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, who has been studying Marbled Murrelets in Southeast Alaska in recent years. Through his presentation, I learned that this mystery bird of my youth has presented something of a mystery to Western Science since it was first described over 200 years ago. Much of what follows below is my retelling of some of the things that stuck with me after listening to the presentation.

The Alcid family is a group birds that feed by diving for food in the ocean. In adapting to this niche, their ability to fly through the air has been sacrificed somewhat, in order to better swim through the water. Birds in this family actually use their wings to ‘fly’ through the water rather than their feet for propulsion. This is why when you see a Marbled Murrelet dive, it just tips forward with its feet up in the air and is still able to dive below the surface.

Diving Marbled Murrelet

Despite their abundance on the waters of Southeast Alaska (where their population is estimated to be well over 600,000 birds), little was known about their natural history until recently. It was not known where these birds even nested until the first nest was discovered way back in 1974, almost 200 years after the bird was first described by science. The nest was discovered by a tree climber in California over 140 feet above the ground. Since that time it has been determined that the Marbled Murrelets in California, Oregon, and Washington have a strong dependence on Old-growth Forest, a habitat type that has been drastically reduced by modern logging and other development. The species was listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act in the lower-48 states, and it has been the subject of much study. Over the last couple of decades, these studies have resulted in a much better understanding of Marbled Murrelets, though significant mysteries remain.

As members of the Alcid family, Marbled Murrelets are adapted for ‘flying’ underwater. This adaptation has come at the expense of easy flight through the air. As a practical matter, these birds are unable to fly slow and maintain loft. They must fly fast, generally at least 40 miles per hour (though they have been clocked at over 100 miles per hour coming down from the forest). As a result, they are unable to take off from the ground and you may often see them bouncing off waves as they try to take off and remain airborne. (I guess this might be why they always seemed to dive rather than take off when I saw them while boating in my younger years.)

Unlike any other Alcid, Marbled Murrelets nest in trees. This goes some way to explaining why their summer plumage is so much more drab than their black and white winter plumage; it’s necessary to avoid detection by predators. If you can, try to imagine what it might be like to try landing on a small nest hollowed out in a clump of moss growing on a narrow tree branch when you are incapble of slow flight and tight turns. It turns out that they approach the nest by flying in through an opening in the canopy (one of the characteristics of old-growth is a broken canopy) come in well below the level of the nest, then fly up to the nest, stalling out at just the right elevation to end up at the nest. The way out just reverses the way in with a fall from the nest to gain the necessary speed for actual flight out of the woods. Oh, and did I mention that they do this in the dark when they are nesting and caring for young?

Calling Murrelet

The parents seem to pair up and stay together for multiple years. Even in the winter you will usually seem them paired off. When they are diving to feed and one comes up without the other, they will call out until they find each other. During the summer they take turns incubating their single egg, doing 24 hour shifts. They both take turns feeding the young bird, making multiple flights a night carrying fish hanging out of its beak. (Remember how hard it is to fly even without the extra drag? Remember that they can nest up to 30 miles inland? Remember the approach they must make to land on their nest? Are you amazed at this bird yet?)

Now lets imagine the first flight of the young bird. Your entire life to this point has been spent far up a tree in a small nest hollowed out of a clump of moss on the branch of a tree. You have approximately as long as it takes to fall to the ground from whatever height your nest is at to figure out how to fly. Not only that, but you better be an expert right away, because you only get one shot to make it to water. If your flight stalls out and you end up on the ground, you are not going to be able to take off again. It’s almost like if you took a child who had never been out of a crib and insisted that not only did he need to figure out how to walk in the next 2 seconds, but he had better get a move on, because he also needed to complete a 5k race if he ever wanted to eat again. I guess it’s not really a big surprise that the reproductive success of these birds is relatively low in any given year.

Another interesting thing that has only recently been discovered about these birds is that they seem to fly inland year round. There are not as many that fly in during non-nesting months, but with the exception of the fall months when the molt occurs and the birds are unable to fly, Marbled Murrelets have been observed flying inland and back out again around the time of dawn throughout the year. It is unclear why they might do this.

Next summer there will be some research done around Sitka to learn a little more about the behavior of Marbled Murrelets in this area (much of the research in Southeast to this point has been done in more inside waters). It will be interesting to see is learned about these fascinating birds.

This afternoon we went on an Allen Marine trip for a couple of hours. It was a little breezy, but there were plenty of whales out towards Vitskari.

Weather: Another day of clear and chilly conditions. Winds were a little stronger. There was a pretty good breeze coming out of Silver Bay, it looked like.

Birds: I saw a few birds while we were on the cruise, but I did not get too good of a look at any of them. I think I might have seen some White-winged Scoters, however.

Marine Mammals: There were quite a few whales out toward Vitskari. I got photos of at least 6 different whale tail flukes and I know there were at least a few more that I did not get photos of. Some of them were feeding quite close together.

Flora: It was interesting to see that there is a Mt. Ash tree along the Lincoln Street that still has most of its leaves, and they are green. Of course in the cold temperatures, they were dry and curled up a bit, but it seemed pretty late to have not lost leaves. I also noticed that many of the salmonberry plants along the hill had not dropped leaves before the cold. I wonder if the late spring kept the leaves from ‘wearing out’ and falling off as easily as they might ordinarily (or maybe this is typical and I just haven’t noticed before).