Partial clearing made for some interesting views while Connor, Rowan, and I walked over to UAS this afternoon.
Series: 2011 Photojournal
Indian River
While walking by Indian River this morning, I was interested to see the water still flowing fairly high, but the color of the water was much grayer than I typically expect for flows this high. Most times when there is heavy enough rain to raise levels, the river is brown. I have always heard this is due to tannins that leach into the surface and near-surface waters of the forests and muskegs. That said, now that I think about it, it’s not entirely clear to me why this wouldn’t be going on all the time. Perhaps in periods without heavy rain, there is water with tannins coming in, but it’s a relatively small part of the overall flow, with the bulk of it being from snow melt and ground water. With heavy rainfall, most of the flow is from surface or near-surface runoff which is presumably pretty effective at leaching out the tannins. It would be interesting to know more. At any rate, I assume that currently the relatively high water is due to rainfall in part, but also a fair amount of snow melt. I’m not sure why it was gray, however. In the late spring on warm days, the river level can rise noticeably, but when I’ve seen it at that time, it’s still running clear. I wonder where the sediment was coming from today.
On another note, a hummingbird visited this morning a couple of times. I didn’t get a great look at it, but it seemed like it may have been a female (or young male) Anna’s Hummingbird.
Crescent Harbor
Still fighting a head cold, and despite pretty nice weather for this time of year, spent much of the day inside trying to rest. Snow level dropped a little last night compared to recent days, but still up close to 2000 feet. With skies clearing by around mid-morning (too late for the eclipse, though I … Read more
Morning Walks
Took a couple of pictures on my way to and from class this morning. The view looking back toward town from the west side of O’Connell Bridge caught my eye on my way to class – though it seemed a little less engaging when I was looking at the pictures evening. On the way home I wasn’t sure what was going on with the group of ravens in the lawns by the Baranof statue. It looked like they were finding something to eat, but I have no idea what.
This afternoon I took pictures for a project where students are looking at mycorrhizal relationships with trees. Spruce and hemlock both have mycorrhizal partners that form endomycorrhizal sheaths around the rootlets and through that interface exchange nutrients (and I don’t know what all else).
Gray December Day
Thick overcast made for a dim gray day in Sitka.