A Wild Life

Yesterday it was a sunny day so I went out birding for a good chunk of the day. I went down to the Park for a bit then later in the day I went to the Turnaround and stopped by the Lake on my way back home.

At the Park I walked down and waded across by the mouth of the river, but the water was a little deeper then I thought and I got a little bit of water in my boots.

I walked out onto the beach. There were quite a few gulls on the beach, but the sun was  behind them so I couldn’t see them very well. There were a lot of shorebirds there though so I went and looked at them. On a little mud flat by the mouth of the river there were a lot of Black turnstones, and a few Surfbirds, some Rock sandpipers, Semipalmated plovers, Western and Least sandpipers along with a godwit. As I looked at the godwit I decided that it wasn’t a Marbled godwit so I took photos of it. As I took photos of it I decided that it was likely a Hudsonian godwit. I took some more photos of it and while I was doing that something spooked most of the shorebirds, but when I looked around to see what it was I didn’t see anything that looked like it would spook them. I took a few more photos of the godwit then I headed on down the beach. I looked through some of the gulls on the beach, but there were kids out playing on the beach and chased them off so I did not get a very good look at them. When I was out in front of the visitor center I saw quite a few Marbled murrelets by the shore along with three Red-necked grebes, the hatchery had released their salmon fry some time earlier in the week so I figured that that was why the murrelets and the grebes were there. I walked up into the forest and walked down the trail. As I walked downt eh trail I saw a deer coming  down the trail so I stopped and watched it for a few moments before it moved off into the woods.

Later in the day I went and stopped at the Turnaround. I walked down on the beach and saw a Marbled godwit, some Semipalmated plovers, Least and Western sandpipers along with a Hudsonian godwit, Short billed dowitchers and some Dunlins. I took some photos of the Hudsonian godwit and later decided that it was likely the same one I saw at the park. Will I was watching the shorebirds I noticed a Western sandpiper with a yellow number band on it’s right leg and a red band on it’s left I took some photos of it.

After I was done at the Turnaround I was to the lake, but I did not see anything that seemed out of the ordinary for this time of year, but while I was there I did see someone pair a gliding. After I was done at the Lake I headed home.                                                   Banded Western sandpiper                                                          Rock sandpiper                                                       Marbled godwit                                                             Hudsonian godwit

My birding activates have been restricted the last couple of mouths do to academic problems, but over the weekend I was able to get out a bit.

Saturday evening I went down to the park to see what birds were around.

I saw several shore birds that I had not seen yet this year including, Marbled godwits, Dunlins and western sandpipers. I also saw a Sanderling, I have already seen one of those this year, but I have not seen many of them.

On Sunday I went to the park, lake and the turnaround.

The park and the turnaround were fairly quite. There was a semipalmated plover and some least sand pipers along with a couple of tree swallows at the park. At the turnaround there was a Greater yellowlegs and that was about it.

When I stopped by the lake I saw quite a few swallows flying around, so I stopped at watched them. While I watched them I saw a Cliff swallow and a Violet-green swallow, I have seen both those species in Sitka before, but only once. There were some scaups, Greater white-fronted geese, Cackling geese and some Mallards. While I was trying to get better photos of the swallows I noticed a raptor soaring. I looked at it through my binoculars and realized that it looked like and Golden eagle, which I have never seen in Alaska, so I started taking photos of it as it soared high, then  it set it’s wings and headed north.                                                          Cliff swallow                                              Immature Golden eagle

Today, dad took us up to Indian river falls. It was a nice day out, sunny with a bit of a breeze.
Connor led in the beginning, but fell into the back after we passed a few people that had a small dog. (We ran into a few people that had dogs, in fact it seemed like most of the people we saw had dogs.) So I ended up leading the rest of the way.
I had to pause a couple of times to drink some water, as I had worn my fleece jacket and was slightly warmer than preferred.
The hills I remembered that were near the end were not as big as I remembered, luckily, though I still was a bit tired going up them.
When we got in sight of the waterfall, we stopped and sat down and ate some dried prunes that dad and I had brought up. (I had brought up more than we needed, so there are still some leftover)
After that, we made our way closer to the waterfall, and I did my best to keep my feet dry, even collecting some larger rocks in order to make a small half bridge to jump off of onto another rock.
Once we got closer to the waterfall, dad said that Connor and I could go stand up at the base of it in the wind and mist. Connor was fine with that, I was not. But I had to go up anyways.
Dad took our picture while we were up there. I actually enjoyed it even though it was wet and a bit cold, Connor fled as soon as he could and I stayed and decided I wanted to try to go right up besides the waterfall.
I had to go back to where dad and Connor were and the water was shallower in order to head over to the other side. I told dad and Connor that I wanted to go over there and Connor said he could go with me.
It didn’t take us very long to get over there, I don’t remember what Connor did, but my feet were already wet from the mist so I didn’t worry about my feet getting wet.
Dad took our picture while we were up there, then Connor left and I almost did too but then decided to stay.
While I was up there, I had to yell to ask Connor to take a picture of me with my camera (Which I had left down by Connor’s along with my water bottle so it wouldn’t get wet). He took a few and then dad took a few. I also had gotten closer to the waterfall and was getting even more wet. (I still thought it was fun)
After they were done taking pictures, I left and headed back down. (by that time I could wring water out of my sleeves and hood, and probably my pants, which felt weighed down, and socks too. My shoes were sopping and like sponges as well.)
After that, dad went and sat down in the water like he’d been planning to. He stayed in there for a little over a minute and after he got out there was a noticeable line where he’d been in the cold water and where he hadn’t, it looked like he’d gotten a bad sunburn.
Unfortunately, the sun was mostly covered by clouds at that time so there was no warm sun on the first part of our way back.
I didn’t get hot though! but I was cold-ish… It was mostly my hands that were freezing, the rest of me was mostly fine. Until my clothes got to that one stage between wet and dry were it’s just uncomfortably moist.
Connor was nice and took my camera for me so it didn’t get wet, and I took my water bottle though and it’s bag got quite wet.
On the way back we jogged a little in some spots and stopped a couple of times (Once was because while at the beginning of crossing a log over the water damaged area that had water flowing through it, I saw a bug that had lots of tiny red orange mites all over it and dad took a few pictures).
I also let Connor warm up my hands a few times.
At the end when we got home, I asked Connor to put my shoes on the boot drier and I went and put my clothes in the washer to get washed and dried and put on a new pair. Then we went and at Chile that dad had just made last night and he also made a smoothie.
All and all, I think it was a pretty good day!

Yesterday after I was done with my paper route, I was walking to stop by mom’s for a short time before I went back to dad’s. I was almost to mom’s when I looked up and saw a bird sitting on a telephone wire. I was able tell that it was a small falcon, but it was sky lit so I couldn’t tell if it was a merlin or some other small falcon. I was just getting my camera out when it flew. It came down in front of some buildings so that it was no longer sky lit and I was able to see some color. I could tell from the color and size that it was a American Kestrel, I have only ever seen one in Sitka before this one so it was exciting for me to see it. The kestrel went over and caught an insect in the grass behind a bike shed then went up and landed on the roof of a building near by. I got a couple photos of it then let dad know that it was there, and went back to taking photos of it.

By the time dad had gotten up there the bird had been moving around and had flown over to Jarvis street and had just flew back towards the area I had first seen it. Dad and drove around and looked for it. We followed it around for a bit, but were unable to get better photos of it, and eventually the Kestrel disappeared.   

This year dad got invited to go on the Whalefest Cruise to talk about birds so Rowan and I got to tag along.

We needed to be down to Crescent harbor by about 8am so I was out of bed about 7:15am. After doing somethings around the house dad got up and we headed down to the harbor.

There was frost on the ground but the sun was out so the frost that was in the sun was melting.

After we were under way on the boat, we went through the Channel which was pretty quite when it came to birds. We then headed out, went through Crow pass, and headed over to Kruzof. We went by Fred’s creek, we watched some whales, they lunge feed a couple of times, while I was watching the whales I looked over at the beach using my binoculars and saw three deer on the beach I got a couple of photos of them then went back to watching the whales.

After we had watched the whales for a bit, and they started to move away, we heard that there was a bit of herring spawning happening up by Shoal’s point, so we head up that way.

It was very calm there was just a tiny bit of swell on our way to Shoal’s point but that was it. It was also a bit breezy out there but it wasn’t bad.

On our way to Shoal’s point I noticed a couple of Harbor porpoises but they didn’t stay up long enough for me to get any photos of them. Once we got to Shoal’s point, Low island area we saw big raft of Sealions and in amongst the Steller’s sealions I saw a California sealion.  I got some photos of it and took so photos of some birds that were in the area. We hung out there in that area for a bit longer then we started back towards town. As we started back I saw several harbor porpoises and was able to get some photos of them.

We went back on the outside of Crow island. On the way back I stayed in the beck and took photos the birds I saw, and one group of birds I got photos of were a couple of  Ancient murrelets. I had never seen them before so I was glad I was able to get photos of them.

We got back to the harbor and headed home.                         A sea otter with was looks like might be a chunk of phome                                                          California sealion                                                      Harbor porpoises                                              Lunge feeding Humpback whales                               Sitka black-tailed deer on the beach of Kruzof                                                   Ancient murrelets flying

This morning when I went down to the park, it was a bit cloudy and all the snow had melted off.
Since it was still a little cold out, I decided to wear my coat, though I got a bit hot on my way back after the sun had come out.
I left a bit after Connor did and ran into him at the top of the hill before the road that I cross to get to the harbor. He had stopped to take some photos of two purple finches that he saw because on was singing.
I only stuck around for a few moments and he went behind me, and then moved in front after I stopped because he was following me.
When I got to the battle site bench, there was a seagull on the trail side of it and it moved closer to the beach off to the side on some dead grass when I came closer.
I sat down and watched it for a bit and just when I was about to leave, Connor walked up the trail and I pointed it out to him.
We figured that it had gotten chased by an eagle or hit a tree and was a little dazed. Connor scared it a bit to see if it could still fly, and it seemed like it could, but it only moved a little ways into the beach.
Just after the battle site bench where Connor walked out onto the beach, I saw three chickadees on the trail, one was pulling on some fuzz that I later saw was some dog hair.
I stopped to watch them, and as I was watching, the first one pulling on the fuzz flew into the salmonberry bushes and another one pulled on the fuzz briefly.
They all eventually went into the bushes, only occasionally landing back on the trail. Just before I continued, one landed behind me for a few moments.

Earlier this week I was watching birds in at our feeder with my sister, when I noticed there was a bird out there that did not look quite right. I then realized it was a purple finch. My sister stayed and kept track of it while I went and got my camera. When I got back she went and got her camera. We took some photos of it then I went and told dad about it. He came down and got some photos of it then it flew away. There were also some Red crossbills, Pine siskins, Dark-eyed juncos and some Varied thrush at the feeder. 

Yesterday afternoon I was standing and watching our bird feeder when I noticed that there was a red crossbill feeding at it. Red crossbills are normally feeding on cones up in the top of conifer trees, so I was excited that there were a few coming to our feeder. I took some photos of them and let dad now they were there. Over the remaining time I that afternoon, I would periodically go outside and take some photos of them. This morning when I got up and walked and looked out the window, I saw  that the crossbills were out there again so I spent some time outside taking photos of them.  

Yesterday night it was a minus two tide so dad took us down to Sandy beach.
I protested a bit, as it was going to be dark and most likely cold, but we went anyways, bringing along Connor’s spotlight and a few headlamps.
It wasn’t too bad out there and it didn’t start being windy until near the end luckily.
Dad also brought along a UV light as well, to see if anything glowed, and a few things did glow! Some green shrimp we found, what I think were eggs and a few starfish glowed a little bit, which was neat.
Some other things we found that didn’t glow were a couple of sculpins, a clingfish and some sea cucumbers.
I brought along a pair of gloves that dad got me that were water proof, just in case I wanted to flip over some rocks that were in the water.
But I didn’t want to change my gloves, so I attempted to flip over some rocks using my feet. I managed to flip over one with some effort, but the other one I had to change my gloves, and after all of that, there wasn’t anything of interest under it! Just a few hermit crabs.
When it started to snow and get windy, I headed back over to dad asking if we could go back. He asked what time it was and Connor said around eight twenty, so we started hading back to the car.

This morning I got up, to the sun shine I walked up to the kitchen and looked out the widow to see that it had snowed over night. I ate breakfast then went birding.

I walked over the bridge and to the airport. I didn’t see anything unusual over there so I walked back. When I was on my way back over the bridge though I saw a Yellow-billed loon in the channel by the bridge. I went down by the water an d took some photos of it. They are not seen very often close to shore around here.

After the loon, I walked up to the lake, and saw that it was frozen over. There were some swans at the lake along with a few mallards, some Thayer’s, Glaucous-winged gulls. There was also a California gull there along with a glaucous gull.Glaucous gull California gull     Yellow-billed loon