This morning I woke up to overcast skies- the first in probably at least two weeks. The highest part of many mountain peaks were obscured by the clouds. For some reason a couple of different times when I was pausing just to take it all in, I was struck by a feeling I associate with a return home after being down south for a while. I’m not sure what emotional elements are a part of that sense of return, but it was interesting to experience it today. I suspect in part it was due to the recent run of sunny weather we’ve had and the transition back to a more typical weather pattern.

Herring had been spawning near O’Connell bridge, and the waters there were quite green as a result. I think it was primarily a result of spawning yesterday, however. It did not look there was any fresh activity today, at least not any of the times I went by.

I stopped by Marge’s after class today to catch up on bird sightings. It had been 6 weeks – somehow it never seems like quite so long. When I was walking up, there was an odd looking bird in her yard, but of course I had left my binoculars in the car. I was able to grab a picture of it and see that it was a (young?) White-throated Sparrow still lingering.

This evening I noticed a crescent moon dropping to the northwest through scattered clouds. I was able to get a few pictures, but none that captured it quite like I might have preferred (in part because I did not have a tripod). I guess that’s where a more serious photographer would have been planning ahead and been setup in a good spot to capture the image desired. I’ll probably give at least a couple of those photos their own post (though they will also show up in the gallery here when I get them processed and uploaded).

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Another clear day and night. As I write this, temperatures have dropped to 8F after reaching a high of only 14F. It seems unlikely we’ll reach a record low for this date (7F in 1971), but perhaps we’ll match or break the record low for tomorrow (8F in 1969) before temperatures warm up for the day. Fortunately winds have been calm around the house, so it hasn’t felt too bad.

The view of Orion from the south side of the house inspired me to brave the cold for a couple of minutes to take some pictures.

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Taken through a window, I could not see the reflected light until looking at the 30 second exposure.

Orion in the southern sky.

Orion in the southern sky.

I was up before 6 this morning and took a walk down to O’Connell Bridge. It was enjoyable to take some long-exposure photographs in the predawn light.

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The sky is just starting to lighten behond the mountains to the east.

A troller headed out leaves an odd pattern of light trails behind it in this long exposure.

The Sisters are in Silhouette behind the sodium vapor lights casting their yellow glow over the boats in Crescent Harbor.

City lights illuminate O'Connell bridge with Mt. Edgecumbe in the background.

City lights illuminate O'Connell bridge with Mt. Edgecumbe in the background.

O'Connell Bridge before dawn.

A bright glitter path illuminates the waters of Sitka Sound below a nearly moon.

This pale green glow behind Gavan Hill was the first aurora I had seen in over 2 years.

Over the past couple of years the sun has been in a solar minimum, a consequence of which has been auroras that are only rarely strong enough to be seen from Sitka. Combined with frequently cloudy skies, the northern lights have not been easy to observer around here for quite a while. A couple of days ago, I noticed the aurora forecast from the UAF Geophysical Institute was for active aurora (4 on a scale from 0 to 9), which meant there was a reasonable possibility that there would be some action in the northern skies.

Skies were clear and it was a moonless night, the satellite-based map of northern hemisphere aurora showed high aurora extending over Southeast Alaska, and I heard someone else had seen a burst of activity, so I checked a couple of times and at one point spent a half an hour watching. I never saw anything more than a pale green glow, mostly visible as a slight brightening of the sky behind Gavan Hill. A long camera exposure made the green of the aurora much more visible, though it also resulted in somewhat strange looking trees in shrubs in the foreground, as they were illuminated to varying degrees by neighborhood lights. Although not as dramatic as past shows I’ve seen here, it was nice to see the aurora again. It’s been over 2.5 years since the last time I photographed the northern lights, and I’m pretty sure that was the last time I saw them.

I got up early this morning and took a walk to the post office. It was fun to experiment with some night photography in the intermittent snow showers. Later today I noticed the red alders at the park have a lot of catkins this year.

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I took a little time while on my way home last night to shoot some pictures of the moon rising over the mountains and Crescent Bay.

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