Around noon (shortly after the 12.38 high tide) I went for a walk down along Lincoln Street and through the park. I was thinking with the high tide there might be some birds fairly close to land, but it was much quieter than I hoped. I did see some Harlequin Ducks and gulls by the park. Black Turnstones on the beach, and Red-breasted and Common Mergansers off-shore and in the river, respectively.

Weather was quite gray this morning, though it was starting to get brighter by the time I left. While out walking, the clouds broke up and I saw a brief bit of sun and blue sky between the rain and hail squalls.

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Immature Mew Gull in Flight over the water at Totem Park.

A pair of Harlequin Ducks off Totem Park.

Immature Mew Gull in Flight over the water at Totem Park.

Immature Mew Gull in Flight over the water at Totem Park.

Black Turnstones sitting on a driftlog at Totem Park.

This Mew Gull was picking at the surface just off the beach at Totem Park.

Raindrops hit the surface of the ocean just off the beach at Totem Park.

Glaucous-winged Gull in flight off Totem Park.

Eurhynchium oreganum growing on long-stranded driftlog at edge of forest in Totem Park.

Eurhynchium oreganum growing on forest floor in Totem Park.

Eurhynchium oreganum growing on forest floor in Totem Park.

Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis) bark often has a fairly distinct look due to the way it flakes off.

Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis) bark often has a fairly distinct look due to the way it flakes off.

Male Red-breasted Merganser in flight at Totem Park.

The foreground ridge runs west from Peak 2550, while the middle-ground ridge runs north from the same peak.

Most active were the Pine Siskins – they were chattering from the trees to my east and southeast. They’re fairly aggressive and noisy at most times, but they seem to be spreading out a bit – perhaps they’re starting to separate into breeding pairs. The juncos were also chittering amongst themselves, with an occasional trilled abbreviated song thrown in. They were also mostly to my east and southeast, though lower down in the trees. I saw them flying over the house to south of me as well. Chestnut-backed Chickadees were regular, but less frequently calling, I’m not sure if they were just passing back and forth, actively feeding, or something else. A couple of times down the hill a little further off to the east, I heard a Winter Wren singing. Varied Thrushes gave a few short-quiet buzzing-calls, though mostly they were quiet (I did see one fly up to an upper tree branch when I started walking back to the house).

There were ravens calling in the further distance, and also at least one raven (possibly more) flying over the area repeatedly (though not in any pattern I noticed) making a call I find reminiscent of a shorebird. It’s kind of a rapid “tu-tu-tu-tu” or something like that. I’ve heard them make it in the past, though right now I can’t remember if it was only in the spring time or not. I did see a second raven carrying what appeared to be nesting material yesterday – so I’m curious if the call is something related to courtship/breeding.

When I first sat down at the tree I didn’t notice any sapsucker wells. This seemed odd, since the warmth of this location seemed like a good prospect to induce sap flow. It did not take much specific looking to find several wells tapped in the tree – most of them closer to the base, almost even into where the duff was covering the start of the roots. Most of the wells looked pretty dry, but I did notice more than one with small beads of sap starting to form.

At one point during my sit, I heard a squirrel alarm from the trees ESE of me, then some scurrying in the brush and leaves a short distance directly to my east. I looked over and startled a squirrel that had come down from the trees and started toward me along the ground. It jumped back to the nearest tree, climbed up to get a better look at me and then proceeded to take a detour, jumping from branch to branch and crawling along above my head. A short time a later, a second squirrel did the same thing, though this one took some time to check me out further from the trunk directly above my head. It came towards me head-first, then backed up, shifted a little bit to the side, seemingly trying to figure out who/what I was. After a few moments, it must have decided I was no longer interesting, as it returned to its former quest of chasing the first squirrel (or so it seemed to me). A few minutes later they both came running back toward the direction they had come from, with one in close pursuit of the other.

A substantial bit of melting occurred with ice on the ground through the day, but as soon as the sun was down near the horizon, it started to freeze up and become quite slippery. I actually found it kind of fun to slide down/along icy patches, but it can be treacherous.

Walking down along the harbor about 45 minutes after sunset, I enjoyed the thumbnail crescent of the moon with a bright Jupiter (I think) nearby. The lingering colors of the sunset were reflected in the harbor’s calm waters along with the harbor lights now starting to turn on. I noticed the silhouette of a Great Blue Heron standing at the water’s edge – as we approached, it’s head smoothly turned so it could keep an eye on us; suddenly twisting rapidly to look with the other eye when we had walked past it. I stopped briefly to look at it and see if it would fly off, but apparently that was not enough of a break from accepted human behavior to make it decide to move locations.

While walking through town on my way to UAS, I was inspired to take a series of tree silhouette photos. It was interesting to see how distinct they looked, even in silhouette. Of course the colorful sky as a backdrop didn’t hurt.

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One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

Pink clouds color the sky behind O'Connell Bridge with Mt. Edgecumbe in the distance.

Colorful winter sunset observed from O'Connell Bridge.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

One of a series of tree silhouettes to illustrate differences in growth paterns between species.

Colorful winter sunset observed from O'Connell Bridge.

Colorful winter sunset observed from O'Connell Bridge.

Colorful winter sunset observed from O'Connell Bridge.

Baeospora myosura, which I am calling Spruce Cone Mushroom, fruits primarily on Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis) cones. In other parts of its range, it will also grow on Douglas Fir, but they are absent in this area. According to the California Fungi account for Baeospora myosura, there is only on other species that is sometimes confused with this one, but the various pictures available on the internet of each species seemed to make the ones pictured here a fairly easy call. Happily, the spores also reacted during a chemical test, confirming the identification.

Baeospora myosura at SE Alaska Natural History Wiki

Spruce tips at about the right stage for picking.

This week’s wild food required a little more preparation than previous weeks. I thought it would be nice to have some spruce tip honey, but knew that it takes long enough to make, that it would not be possible to pick and prepare on Wednesday. Connor and Rowan had a day off from school Monday, so while we were at the beach we picked a quart or so of spruce tips. Later that night I worked on making the honey. As it turned out, I cooked it for too long and ended up with a syrup/honey that was too stiff to be conveniently used. (I couldn’t even spread it with a knife.) The next day I reheated it and mixed in more water, but this time I didn’t evaporate enough of the water off and it was more the consistency of light syrup than honey.

Red Elderberry (Samcucus racemosa) in bloom.

This week the Red Elderberries (Sambucus racemosa) have been blooming, and I had a recipe for elderberry flower fritters from Janice Schofield’s book, Discovering Wild Plants that I wanted to try and it seemed like they might go well with the spruce tip honey, so the kids and I picked some flowers. (Note that many parts of Red Elderberry are poisonous, but the flowers and berries, minus the seeds, are not.)

Connor and Rowan helped pick these flowers to make fritters.

The recipe called for 4 cups of flowers, which were to be dipped in flour. We hadn’t picked quite that much, so I cut back on the batter ingredients slightly. I suspect I did not do it carefully enough and ended up with a batter that was thicker than it should have been. (This would have been easy to fix, had I done this before and realized what I needed.) As it turned out, I ran out of batter before running out of flowers, and the fritters were quite thick, consistently mostly of the bread-like fried batter.

The fritters were generally well-received, especially dipped in the spruce tip honey/syrup. Connor and Rowan said they mostly just like bread. Given the thickness of the fried batter, this is not surprising. I found the faint sour odor of the flowers an interesting part of the smell/taste mix along with the batter and spruce tip honey/syrup. Schofield says the fritters are not unlike fried clams, but that was not my experience. Perhaps with a lighter batter that allowed the flavor of the flowers a bit more room to expand, my impressions would have been different.

Elderberry fritters with spruce tip honey for dipping.

Pictures from a hike up the West Fork of Indian River

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Four spruce trees rise up to substantial heights near the west fork channel.

It apperas that the top of each of these trees has been knocked out at least once, and perhaps several times.

The confluence of the falls tributary and the main channel of the West Fork of Indian River.

I was interested to see high water had deposited rocks on top of the snow.

I was interested to see high water had deposited rocks on top of the snow.

Taken shortly above the first bridge on Indian River Trail.

Taken near the confluence of the main West Fork and the muskeg tributary.

Somewhat downstream from the big Hemlock.

The falls tributary of the West Fork of Indian River.

Pollen cones on the Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis) are starting to mature.

A couple of days ago I noticed pollen cones maturing on a Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis). For some reason I had not realized that they started with the brown scales just like spruce tips (the new growth). It also occured to me that they grew in the same locations as you might normally expect to find new growth. This suggests that in years when a tree produces pollen cones on a given branch, that branch will not have any new growth. I suppose it’s possible that new growth develops after the pollen cones have dropped, so I will probably try to check on that throughout the summer.

Questions that occur to me include the following:

• When does the tree ‘decide’ to produce pollen cones instead (presumably) of new growth?
• How early is it possible to tell whether a given brown-scaled bud is going to develop into a pollen cone or new growth?
• Is pollen cone production a regular cycle (every x-number of years) or dependent on available energy reserves and/or more or less random?
• How much of a given tree is devoted to pollen cones, and does any given tree tend to have at least a few pollen cones each year?

Pollen cones on Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis)

Pollen cones on Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis)