This morning marked the first class of the fall semester for me. Unlike past semesters when my classes were stacked up to make very busy Tuesdays and Thursdays, I will be teaching Tuesday through Friday from 8am-10am. It’s still two classes, but for various reasons the schedule worked out this way. It will take a little while to get used tot he relatively early (for me) start time, but I think in the end the regularity across days will probably help facilitate a more consistently productive schedule for me. Reflecting back on the last 2+ months of few and far between updates, it’s been kind of a busy summer. I picked up some new work that I can do from home, but getting up to speed on that has taken a significant amount of attention. In part due to that (as well as copious amounts of rain being a little demotivating at times) I’ve not gotten out quite as much as I imagine I would have liked to. Still, I did get out at times, and have quite a few pictures to process and upload, so over the coming months I hope to get that taken care of (if you want to make sure not miss backdated posts, you can subscribe to e-mails by entering your address on the right).

On Sunday the clouds were low and rain was quite heavy at times. Temperatures were in the lower 50s, but it didn’t seem especially cold, so I was a little surprised when I saw someone post on Facebook that there was snow down on Bear Mountain. I went out to try and see for myself, but could not see anything through the low-hanging clouds. I tried again on Monday when there were periodic showers instead of the more constant heavy overcast, but my timing was not good, and I didn’t manage to catch the full extent.

Today dawned clear, and the snow from over the weekend was still on mountains over about 4000 feet. I enjoyed the warmth of the sun while working on the south deck this afternoon. Clouds were few and far between, but a bit of a breeze picked up – it seemed to me to be coming mostly from the east, though I’m not sure how much that was influenced by where I was sitting.

Juncos definitely seem to be flocking up more in the neighborhood. I noticed a small flock of maybe a dozen flying through the big pine tree towards the northeast as the evening wore on.

It seems like every fall I spend a little time making special note of some of the pockets of color that I find, and this year was no exception. On a mid-October trip to Starrigavan Estuary I noticed there were several Pacific crabapples (Malus fusca) with yellow leaves tucked between the dark green boughs of large evergreens lining the estuary. Beyond the paler green of mature red alders (Alnus rubra) that have grown up along a stretch that had seen significant disturbance in the past. Of course beyond them, the expanse of conifers broken by the occasional gray column of a decaying, but not yet fallen, snag.

More recently, I was back at the estuary and noticed some of those crabapple leaves had turned a deep red. Perhaps it’s due in part to the relatively mild (wind/weather-wise) fall this year, but I don’t recall noticing that color on native plants around here except on the occasional isolated leaf or branch, while these seemed to be more like entire trees (small as they were). I briefly considered pulling out my camera to take a picture, but decided against it since it would have required changing lenses. Now I find myself wishing I had made the effort, though wondering at the same time if my memory of red leaves a more compelling image than a photo would.

After increasingly unseasonal highs of 60F, it finally has started to cool off in the past couple of days. With yesterday afternoon’s dusting of snow and this morning’s frost, it seems like we’re finally headed into more fall-like conditions. Much of the ground did not seem to have frost on it, I imagine because there was enough heat still there to keep it from cooling off to that point. However, there was a nice display of frost patterns on the roof of the car. So much so, that I decided to take a moment to grab a photo before we headed out the road.

The big adventure of the day was a return to the landslide at Starrigavan. Despite Rowan’s protestations, we made it up to the upper side of the slide area, then walked up slide slope a bit along along the water course there. I’ll post more about the trip separately when I get a chance to process the photos.

On the return, I took a quick look at Sealing Cove to see if I could see any evidence of the sea star wasting disease that’s now shown up here (after devastating populations in other places along the west coast). While there, I also grabbed some shots of the brilliant white fresh snow against the deep blue sky. It seemed especially striking, I think in part because the air was quite clear.

This afternoon we spent an hour or so enjoying the sun at Magic Island. Originally the kids considered swimming, but after a little bit of wading, they thought better of it. All the sea temperatures have been warm (by which I mean in the mid-50s), there was a definite chill in the air today, and even ‘warm’ water doesn’t really seem too inviting without the warmer air. The sun still felt quite warm, but I noticed that if I had my legs up (as I was laying down) so part of them were shaded from direct sun (or its reflection off the water), the shaded parts would start to feel cold before long.

There were quite a few gulls and cormorants (mostly pelagic) just off of Magic Island when we arrived. They started dispersing shortly after. I had noticed a similar gathering near SeaMart within the past few days, as well. I assume there is some sort of food they’re finding, but I don’t know what it might be.

I also heard about a bunch of whale spouts in Eastern Channel from someone who has a restricted view (suggesting, they were all very concentrated together).

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Fall has come in with at least a day of nice weather. Although I didn’t get to spend much time out in the warm sun, I did appreciate that unique feeling of summer warmth and sun lingering into the fall season, despite the obviously shorter days and lower angle of light, even at midday. I know in other places this is the norm, but in Sitka we do not often get much of it as the storms roll off the Gulf of Alaska one after the other.

One aspect of this time of year that I find fascinating is tracking the minimal extent of snow (as well as looking at the exposed ice) on the high peaks of the island that support it year-round. With relatively low snow fall last winter followed by a dry spring and warm summer, it’s a recipe for lots of exposed rock and ice. I don’t know that I will manage to get up Bear Mountain to look at the most easily accessible areas of ice, but it’s tempting to try.

I’m not sure if it was an artifact of the angle of light at this time of year, or maybe just a particular sort of awareness on my part, but this evening when I was coming home after my class at UAS, the greens on Mt. Verstovia seemed especially intense. I first noticed the brighter yellowish-greens that I associate with cedars, they appeared to almost glow in contrast with the darker almost blue/gray-green spruces. As I continued to look, I saw that there were a variety of shades, all seeming more striking than I’ve typically noticed. The overall effect was to give the mountain (especially the broad lower slopes) a vibrancy that I really enjoyed.

There are still many gulls around the river mouth, though in the cursory scans I made today, I didn’t notice anything unusual. There was a flock of Black Turnstones, quite a few Savannah Sparrows, a couple or more territorial Song Sparrows, and an expected pair of Pectoral Sandpipers, all out on the flats at the end of the park.

Coming around to where I had a view of the west and northwest, it was interesting to see the billowing cloud formations. The apparent rate of change of distant clouds makes it difficult to perceive the dynamic nature of their existence (time lapse photography is nice for that), but the features were striking enough at times that I could tell they had changed even after just a couple of minutes.

I ended up spending a little while at Sage Beach trying to get photos of a pair of Red Crossbills. Recently they routinely have been seen on the beach (apparently feeding) and I’m wondering if it has something to do with getting nutrients for nesting (though I would suspect that would be more important for the female, and it seems like both are down there). Given the consistency with which these crossbills are down there, I’m thinking they probably are nesting nearby.

I spotted a young Pigeon Guillemot in Crescent Harbor that I first heard about on Friday. It’s interesting that it seems to be sticking around. I got some photos of it with a food item that was clearly a large-ish shrimp, though I’m not sure if it will be possible to tell what species.

This afternoon after Tlingit class it was raining pretty hard from heavy looking clouds (aawaghéet). The rain continued for some time (including my walk home).

(photos to come)

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I’ve been checking the radar, but tonight is the first I’ve seen in a while where there isn’t significant rain throughout the area. Migration is definitely on – I’m not sure what flight volume is represented by the radar reflectivity, but clearly there is stuff in the air headed south along the coast of Baranof Island (green means movement toward the radar installation, red away – image is from around 11pm, 13 August).

Current Biorka Island Radar velocity loop
Current Middleton Island Radar velocity loop

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.

The last couple of weeks have seen many signs of fall – termination dust on the mountain peaks, high numbers of migrating sparrows (accompanied by a few lingering warblers), the few clear nights bring chilly mornings with frost covered ground, and there are patches of color. There are some trees that have been planted around town which are fairly reliable for showing bright colors in the fall, but for the most part you won’t find many plants poking you in the eye with their colors around Sitka.

As I understand it, cold nights and warm days tend to result in more colorful leaves. Predominant weather patterns in these parts during late September and October don’t really lend themselves to such days, so perhaps that plays a part in the lack of color. (Of course it doesn’t help that most of our land cover is conifer forest, and the primary deciduous trees, Red and Sitka Alder, don’t seem to be capable of showing any thing approaching a bright color, regardless of conditions.) Today while walking by Crescent Harbor I noticed the colorful fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) shown above and wondered if the cold nights and warm days we’ve somewhat uncharacteristically experienced over the past week may have contributed. I noticed a few other fireweed plants showing some color as I walked over to UAS, but none stood out quite so much as this lone plant.

Snow has begun its descent down the mountain slopes.

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Overnight the snow level dropped to less than 2500 feet.

Overnight the snow level ropped to less than 2500 feet.

This time of year the sun is starting to retreat less rapidly than it did near the equinox, but the cumulative effect of the season really starts to become obvious. The sun is setting a little after 5pm (and we haven’t even switch the time back yet), and even when it is up, it does not climb very high in the sky. Although the loss of light and warmth has its drawbacks, the quality of light we get can be quite nice. The picture leading off this post was taken at 3:30, mid-afternoon by most standards, yet the low angle of the sun shining through steam rising from the trees and muskeg makes the epiphytic lichens on the branches of a shore pine practically glow against the partially shaded edge of the forest in the background.

Long-tailed Ducks have returned to the Channel.

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These bright red salmonberry leaves caught my eye when I was walking home recently. Salmonberries don’t usually show much color, and to the extent they do, it seems like it is usually just a muted yellow as the leaves transition from green to brown. There were also just a couple of branches with bright red leaves.

Generally speaking, Sitka is not a place you would visit in search of fall colors. The vast majority of vegetated land is covered in evergreen forests. The most abundant deciduous trees (alders) have leaves that fall while still green or they just turn brown with little or no reds and yellows in transition. In some the introduced European Mt. Ash (Sorbus aucuparia) will show a fair amount of yellow and orange, and there are some other introduced trees that will show color as well.

The native plants that I’ve noticed most consistently showing reasonably bright fall colors are smaller plants. These include the dwarf blueberry (Vaccinium caespitosum), Tufted Bulrush (Trichophorum cespitosum), and Deer Cabbage (Nephrophilidium crista-galli). These are not the only ones, but they are the ones that seem most obvious to me (or at least the ones I’m remembering as I write this).

Both the bulrush and blueberries can be found in low elevation muskegs, with the blueberries turn a pinkish color and the bulrush a rather striking yellow. Deer cabbage can also be found at low elevations, but I associate the bright yellow fall colors with plants just above the tree line. Sometimes it is possible to see the patches of bright yellow up on the mountain ridges from some distance away.

Lower temperatures associated with recent weather systems have resulted in snow at higher elevations. Although this was the first I noticed, there had been some other reports from last week, as well.

After a couple of weeks of exceptionally sunny and warm weather, the clouds, wind, and rain returned just in time for the first day of Fall. Gray (but not uniformly so) skies like this are not unusual sight around Sitka. These cloud formations certainly aren’t as spectacular as some others, but I appreciate the subtle textures and tones that can be found in them.

Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia) near Crescent Harbor.

Late season flowers on a European Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia).

While walking home one day last week, I noticed some light-green new looking growth on a Mt. Ash (Sorbus aucuparia) along the Lincoln Street green belt adjacent to Crescent Harbor. A little further along, I noticed a tree that had a few flowers. This struck me as a bit odd, since I’ve been noticing how much it already seems like fall is coming on. The temperatures haven’t really dropped yet, but the leaves are starting to, and most of the flowers are long gone.

This year I have been trying to pay more attention to blooming times, and something that has been interesting to me lately is how few things seem to be blooming even though it will be a fair while yet before we are likely to have a good freeze. The plants that are still blooming seem to fall into three categories. There are the species that don’t start blooming until late summer, there are plants with an extended blooming period, and finally the plants that seem to putting out a second, much less abundant, set of blooms well after the primary blooming period has ended.

There are only a few species that I associate with a late summer primary blooming period including Kneeling Angelica (Angelica genuflexa) and Douglas Aster (Symphiotrichum subspicatum), Rattlebox (Rhinanthus minor), and the introduced Hairy Cat’s Ears (Hypochaeris radicata).

Species with a blooming period that has a long tail include, Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium), Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), Cleavers (Galium aparine), Pacific Water-Parsley (Conioselinum gmelinii), and the introduced (and invasive) Spreading Buttercup (Ranunculus repens), and Common Ragwort (Senecio vulgaris). This last deserves special mention, as last fall I noticed it blooming until at least the second week of November, and the first plant I saw blooming this spring was in March (though it was May before I started noticing in commonly).

Finally, the group of species that are blooming well after their primary blooming period include Dandelion (Taraxacum officianale), European Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia), and in other years I’ve also seen Giant Vetch (Vicia nigricans ssp. gigantea), and . This group seems to consist of two sub-groups, those plants that consistently do it and those where the blooming seems to be more accidental. The vetch and mountain ash definitely seem to be in the latter category, though I am not sure what might cause such an accidental flowering to occur. Dandelions (and probably the miner’s lettuce, though I’ve not noticed it specifically) do seem to have a late season push of flowers, though not nearly as abundant as in the early summer primary blooming period.

Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia) near Crescent Harbor.

Late season new growth on a European Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia).

Termination dust got down to below 3800 feet overnight covering the highest peaks of the Sisters in snow.