On a Lifelong Journey to Learn my Place
Though the snow level has not dropped low enough to hit the Middle Sister, the higher peak behind has a dusting of snow on its upper elevations, just visible through the clouds.
Despite the damp and cool weather, I was inspired to take pictures of several bryophytes, mushrooms, and a lichen on a short visit to Blue Lake Campground.
Rowan caught a caddisfly along the lower part of Gavan Hill trail and carried it home for me to photograph. Later in the day I took some pictures of plants at Blue Lake Campground. In particular, I was interested to see how much the buds of Ribes plants had already developed. It seemed a bit early to me for that.
We saw a couple of interesting birds on a walk around town today – an Anna’s Hummingbird and a yellow-shafted Northern Flicker.
I noticed an odd loon at the entrance to Sealing Cove while walking to class this afternoon. It was too far out to get very good photos, but I took a bunch hoping to confirm my suspicion that it was a Red-throated Loon. It is the first Red-throated Loon I’ve seen in winter and recognized at the time, although it was only later I realized it must be a first winter bird.
Today Connor, Rowan and I went out with my dad and a friend to see if we could find a deer at Deep Inlet. Connor was quite enthusiastic and hopeful that he would get to shoot his first deer, or at least be able to see one cleaned/prepared for packing out. It was a sunny pleasant day with little wind, a little chilly in the shade, but not like a day I remember when I was a kid.
After hiking up the hill together, Rowan and I split off from the others. We saw plenty of tracks, but no deer. The last time I was up there was probably when I was around Connor’s age, so though it wasn’t too familiar, I was kind of surprised that I recognized as much as I did. (One thing is for sure, the hike up the hill wasn’t nearly as bad as I remember.) We joined back up after a bit and hiked back.
Along the way back, we followed a bear trail that had some relatively fresh tracks (probably from the day before). I was also interested to see a spot where the trail led up to a sign tree and the vegetation in the trail was distinctly different than that on either side of the trail (or even further away from the tree along the trail).
We checked out where the dead Gray Whale had been hauled last spring. I was a little surprised to see how little of it remained. I guess people came out and salvaged the bones, as there were none of those left that we could see. All we were able to find was a patch of what appeared to be skin/blubber. It seemed odd that bears hadn’t eat it down, but perhaps it wasn’t so good for eating for some reason.
It was a pleasant trip back in the boat – the kids each got a turn at driving. It took Rowan a while to figure out how to keep things going in the direction she wanted to go. We ended up turning circles for long enough that I started to get dizzy, but she finally started to get the hang of it. At the green can out off Galankin Island we saw a lone Steller’s Sea Lion laying out in the sun. It raised its head briefly to look at us before relaxing again.
We ended up making it home by early afternoon.