Weather and wildlife in March

On a sunny day in early March, a friend and I went to Eagle Beach, despite windy conditions and a forecast of thirty-to-forty mph gusts. The weathermen had it right. The north wind was roiling up sizable whitecaps on Lynn Canal. The beach was covered with snow, untouched by the recent low tides, and obscured by billows of drifting snow. Instead of heading north on the beach, as I usually do, we cleverly decided to turn our backs to the wind and, hoods up, we walked down the beach and tide flats toward Eagle River.

Across the canal, the snowy Chilkats gleamed in the bright sun. A gang of gulls and crows concentrated at the distant edge of the tideflats, near the water’s edge. Perhaps surprisingly, given the stiff gusts of wind, a couple of groups of gulls were swooping over certain places in the estuary, as if there might be some prey stirred up by the churning waters.

But that was all the wildlife sign we saw, until we’d post-holed over the big meadow to the forest edge. My companion heard pine siskins and we then saw them, working over the cone crops in some tall spruces. There were squirrel tracks and a chattering squirrel. A vole had traipsed across a small open area, leaving footprints and tail-drag.

Best of all: lying on the snow near a big spruce, we found dozens of clipped spruce branches, mostly branch-ends with two or three twigs, all the needle tips neatly nipped off. That porcupine had spent a long time in this spot, clipping all those branches and needles, leaving greenish urine stains here and there, and packing down a well-used trail back and forth across our path. It left some fresh porcupine tooth-work on the base of a nearby hemlock, too.

A bit farther on, we noticed several trees patched with old scars of sapsucker foraging. Material had oozed around the edges of each bird-pecked opening and congealed there, making a rough surface over every opening. The scars on each tree were conspicuously concentrated in dense patches, just above our eye-level, not lower, not higher. Perhaps once a feeding site was started, the flow of sap was greater or at least more accessible there, rather than in a new place. But why did the birds choose those particular trees and those specific parts of the trunks to start feeding?

Returning to the car, it was more post-holing through snow drifts, almost knee-deep. Well-buffeted by those gusty winds, I staggered along, ready for the hot tea that was awaiting us in a handy thermos. Not a long walk today, but a productive one.

The next day was bright and clear again, and very windy, at least in open areas. Four friends met near the visitor center and looked for a packed-down trail along the east edge of the lake. No luck; blowing snow had drifted well over that. So we opted to go toward Nugget Falls on a narrow, packed trail over the flats where the terns usually nest. But that, too, meant post-holing through knee-deep drifts. So we cut over to the usual beach trail and then to the main trail, where we noticed wind-blown alder seeds all over the snow.

Arriving at the base of the falls, sharp-eyed observers spotted two mountain goats on the far side of the creek. One perched on a little rock outcrop and one stood at the edge of a brush thicket. Neither one was moving much, so I had a hard time picking them out. Those two were the first of the year, for me.

Photo by Kerry Howard

As we approach the vernal equinox, day-length is rapidly increasing; the daily rate of change is greatest near the equinoxes (and slowest near the solstices). Humans and otherorganisms notice the lengthening days—eagle start tending their nests, magpies start leaving for the Interior, buffleheads begin to be seen in pairs, and there’s an occasional song of wren or song sparrow. Red squirrels in my neighborhood have been doing a lot of vigorous chasing lately, and food is not the principal focus. Although these squirrels are strongly territorial for much of the year, when females start coming into oestrus, territory borders are commonly crossed in the search for mates. Both sexes often mate with several other individuals, and so litters may have several fathers. Roughly five or six weeks after mating, litters of up to seven young ones appear in the females’ nests.

Although some of the felt-leaf willows have fat buds, other plants lag behind. You can be sure that they have noticed the longer days, but other factors, such as soil temperature, are not yet right for gearing up in ways visible to us. As the longer days gradually warm the soil, more and more plants will show signs of activity, some of them waiting to flower until well after the summer solstice when days are shortening again.

Felt-leaf willow buds. Photo by Kerry Howard

Seasonal transitions are always fun, as we notice each new sign of activity. After a slow start in late winter, the signs speed up through the spring and into the summer. Although skiers may revel in the persistent snow and longer days, others eagerly await the beginnings of green-up and the first flowers.

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Weather and wildlife in March

On a sunny day in early March, a friend and I went to Eagle Beach, despite windy conditions and a forecast of thirty-to-forty mph gusts. The weathermen had it right. The north wind was roiling up sizable whitecaps on Lynn Canal. The beach was covered with snow, untouched by the recent low tides, and obscured by billows of drifting snow. Instead of heading north on the beach, as I usually do, we cleverly decided to turn our backs to the wind and, hoods up, we walked down the beach and tide flats toward Eagle River.

Across the canal, the snowy Chilkats gleamed in the bright sun. A gang of gulls and crows concentrated at the distant edge of the tideflats, near the water’s edge. Perhaps surprisingly, given the stiff gusts of wind, a couple of groups of gulls were swooping over certain places in the estuary, as if there might be some prey stirred up by the churning waters.

But that was all the wildlife sign we saw, until we’d post-holed over the big meadow to the forest edge. My companion heard pine siskins and we then saw them, working over the cone crops in some tall spruces. There were squirrel tracks and a chattering squirrel. A vole had traipsed across a small open area, leaving footprints and tail-drag.

Best of all: lying on the snow near a big spruce, we found dozens of clipped spruce branches, mostly branch-ends with two or three twigs, all the needle tips neatly nipped off. That porcupine had spent a long time in this spot, clipping all those branches and needles, leaving greenish urine stains here and there, and packing down a well-used trail back and forth across our path. It left some fresh porcupine tooth-work on the base of a nearby hemlock, too.

A bit farther on, we noticed several trees patched with old scars of sapsucker foraging. Material had oozed around the edges of each bird-pecked opening and congealed there, making a rough surface over every opening. The scars on each tree were conspicuously concentrated in dense patches, just above our eye-level, not lower, not higher. Perhaps once a feeding site was started, the flow of sap was greater or at least more accessible there, rather than in a new place. But why did the birds choose those particular trees and those specific parts of the trunks to start feeding?

Returning to the car, it was more post-holing through snow drifts, almost knee-deep. Well-buffeted by those gusty winds, I staggered along, ready for the hot tea that was awaiting us in a handy thermos. Not a long walk today, but a productive one.

The next day was bright and clear again, and very windy, at least in open areas. Four friends met near the visitor center and looked for a packed-down trail along the east edge of the lake. No luck; blowing snow had drifted well over that. So we opted to go toward Nugget Falls on a narrow, packed trail over the flats where the terns usually nest. But that, too, meant post-holing through knee-deep drifts. So we cut over to the usual beach trail and then to the main trail, where we noticed wind-blown alder seeds all over the snow.

Arriving at the base of the falls, sharp-eyed observers spotted two mountain goats on the far side of the creek. One perched on a little rock outcrop and one stood at the edge of a brush thicket. Neither one was moving much, so I had a hard time picking them out. Those two were the first of the year, for me.

Photo by Kerry Howard

As we approach the vernal equinox, day-length is rapidly increasing; the daily rate of change is greatest near the equinoxes (and slowest near the solstices). Humans and otherorganisms notice the lengthening days—eagle start tending their nests, magpies start leaving for the Interior, buffleheads begin to be seen in pairs, and there’s an occasional song of wren or song sparrow. Red squirrels in my neighborhood have been doing a lot of vigorous chasing lately, and food is not the principal focus. Although these squirrels are strongly territorial for much of the year, when females start coming into oestrus, territory borders are commonly crossed in the search for mates. Both sexes often mate with several other individuals, and so litters may have several fathers. Roughly five or six weeks after mating, litters of up to seven young ones appear in the females’ nests.

Although some of the felt-leaf willows have fat buds, other plants lag behind. You can be sure that they have noticed the longer days, but other factors, such as soil temperature, are not yet right for gearing up in ways visible to us. As the longer days gradually warm the soil, more and more plants will show signs of activity, some of them waiting to flower until well after the summer solstice when days are shortening again.

Felt-leaf willow buds. Photo by Kerry Howard

Seasonal transitions are always fun, as we notice each new sign of activity. After a slow start in late winter, the signs speed up through the spring and into the summer. Although skiers may revel in the persistent snow and longer days, others eagerly await the beginnings of green-up and the first flowers.

Winter in Juneau

Winter is an odd time of year here. Sometimes it rains, seemingly forever; sometimes a low, gray cloud parks itself over us for days; sometimes it’s absurdly warm but at other times it’s quite cold and the little bit of wet snow on the ground turnsrock-hard. Even expert forecasters don’t always get it right. When we’re lucky, there’s a good fall of deep, soft snow that makes skiers smile.

One such good snowfall at the end of February sent me and a couple of friends out on snowshoes, plonking around the big meadow near the Eagle Valley Center. That meadow often offers a fine winter record of animal activity on the snow, but on this day we didn’t even see the usual squirrel and porcupine tracks. However, we did see three long shrew trails, way out in the open. The deep snow had a very light crust on top, just enough to support a shrew without much body drag. This was long-distance travel, over many meters—looking for what? Near the far end of the meadow, we spotted the tracks of a medium-size canid that had poked around under some conifer branches and gone off in another direction. Nowhere on our tour had we seen any doggy tracks associated with the quite fresh human boot tracks, so we cheerfully decided that a coyote had been there(maybe).

Photo by Kerry Howard

Bird observation in winter is just as variable as the weather. Sometimes we see quite a few loons, of two different species, but no luck (for me, anyway) this year. Snow buntings and Lapland longspurs show up on the wide, grassy meadows sometimes. Magpies arrive from the Interior, but this year I haven’t seen as many as usual. Pine grosbeaks come too, but I’ve seen none at all, so far. Nor have I seen the occasional slate-colored form of the junco, which comes from the Interior. And where are the siskins and the crossbills??

Favorite occasional winter arrivals are small flocks of the elegant Bohemian waxwings, which sometimes can be seen foraging on mountain ash fruits. They get part of their name from little red blobs of ‘wax’ on the tips of their secondary wing feathers; the red blobs are bigger on older birds and (along with other features) may influence mating success. They are obviously not strictly Bohemian at all, being distributed over both North America and Eurasia, nesting in boreal forest regions and moving somewhat south (including to Bohemia) for the winter. They feed largely on sugary fruits, with additions from insects especially in the breeding season, and sometimes buds, flowers, snails, or other oddments. There has been little intensive research into their ecology.

Photo by Kerry Howard

Unlike the ever-changing winter weather and the often-unpredictable winter bird populations, trees stand there all year round. But they do their own kinds of changing.

The leaves of deciduous trees avoid winter problems by dropping off the trees. But conifer needles face cold temperatures, sometimes wind, and lethal water shortages if the ground freezes.  When the ground is thoroughly frozen, the needles receive no water and cannot conduct photosynthesis; then too much sunlight can be deadly, leading to the accumulation of free-radicals and other damaging particles. Needles have some built-in features that provide some protection, such as a waxy cuticle and a small surface area that conserve water and resin content that is resistant to cold. In addition, they may increase photo-protective carotenoids, and they have a lower metabolism at low temperatures and an ability to continue photosynthesis at a reduced level.

If, despite that first line of defense, ice crystals form in the cells, they can damage critical organelles inside the cell: the nucleus with genetic instructions, the mitochondria that control metabolism, the chloroplasts that house chlorophyll that captures light to initiate photosynthesis, and other miniscule particles that carry out normal procedures. The crystals also can ruin the cell membrane, exposing those organelles to damage and destroying the cells. 

Activated by short day-length and cold temperatures, there’s a second line of defense at the cellular level: cells make some changes to reduce that potential damage. Cell membranes become more pliable, as saturated fatty acids are replaced by un-saturated fatty acids, which freeze at lower temperatures. Some cellular water is moved out of the cell to the interstitial space between cells where, if it freezes, the crystals cause less damage. Furthermore, as interstitial water freezes, it releases a tiny amount of heat, which may help keep the cellular fluids from freezing. Inside the cells, starches are converted to sugars, lowering the freezing point. Lipid concentrations may increase too, and there can be some particular proteins that resist freezing.

Come spring, with warming temperatures and longer days, if the cells remained undamaged, those cellular changes are reversed, restoring the cells to normal conditions. Metabolic rates rise to normal and photosynthesis is again conducted at the usual rates. That’s an impressive array of seasonal adjustment in a seemingly simple thing like a conifer needle.

February trails

January whined its way toward its end, with seemingly interminable days of warm rain—what a miserable excuse for a winter. And then—surprise!!—a starlit night, a nice day, lower temperatures, and then some lovely snow. A great way to end one month and begin the next one. Yes, of course, I had to shovel my deck and the berm left by the city plow, but a neighbor helped with the heavy part of the berm, and altogether the wonderful white stuff was well worth the labor.

So it was ‘Find the snowshoes and let’s go see what we can see.’Partway up the Eaglecrest road, no parking was readily available near the lower meadows, so we ended up plonking around the ungroomed lower loop. We found several deer trails, partly obscured by recent snow. Snowshoe hares had been out in the night. And there were several fresh tracks of squirrel and weasel (no doubt in its white winter coat). There were no little birds in the trees and no signs of porcupine or grouse, which was unusual up there. But it felt like winter was happening!

Early in February, after a good snowfall, I wandered down the east side of Mendenhall Lake on snowshoes, relearning an old route. The snow had covered all the animal tracks, if there had been any, and draped the small trees with heavy white shawls. Strangely, the fog created an eerie illusion that the big rock peninsula on the west side of the lake had somehow advanced, so that it now approached the beach on the east side. Reassuringly, when the fog lifted for a while, the peninsula was back in its usual place. The highlight of the walk was seeing dippers foraging in the lower reaches of Steep Creek, one working along the edge of the creek and a second one soon joining.

In mid February, more snow…replacing what the rains had wrecked. A friend and I went to the meadows by Peterson Creek on snowshoes; that’s a place where we’ve had good animal tracking sometimes. Off we went, but our stroll was curtailed by high water in the numerous sloughs; it hadn’t been cold enough to freeze them. So the walk was short, but we found squirrel tracks, bounding from creek-side to the trees, deer tracks out in the open, and a long trail of porcupine tracks wandering hither and thither. The creek was running high and no dippers in sight.

A few days later, during a little snowfall, we wandered over the Outer Point Rainforest Trail. Along the forest trail, a wren did not care to be watched and zipped speedily under some logs. Out on the water, a little group of goldeneye ducks cruised lazily along. The glaucous-winged gulls loafed on rocky points and a few of them floated quietly, heads tucked next to the body, looking totally relaxed. Just one bird was actively foraging– a small grebe made repeated dives. 

On a rugged bedrock outcrop not far above the high tide line, a number of little potentilla plants flower in the summertime. On this February day, we expected to see only flattened brown leaves and decrepit seed stalks. But behold! There were ever-so-tiny green leaves peeping out from behind the protection of the old brown leaves! 

In the Dredge Lakes area, another friend showed me a lovely colony of a spectacularly orange fungus, growing on an old cottonwood snag. This is Flammulina populicola or velvet shank, a gilled saprophyte that grows only on dead poplars and aspens. It has the unusual habit of fruiting and producing spores in the winter (hence an alternative common name of winter fungus). It has special ice-binding proteins that keep ice crystals from ripping its cell walls (the proteins are similar to those found in diatoms and bacteria that inhabit icy waters). The brilliant orange color is best developed in light environments; if it is growing in the dark, the fungus is whitish.

Photo by Jos Bakker

A little walk on the dike trail began in a light snowfall but—in true Juneau style—it soon changed to rain. There were throngs of geese grazing out on the flats near the open water, a scattering of goldeneyes and buffleheads in a lagoon near the trail, but no mallards. An odd lump moseying along the edge of a not-too-distant slough attracted my attention and, with binoculars, it turned into a killdeer. I’ve been told that it is not very unusual to see killdeer here and in the Fish Creek estuary across the channel in the winter, when other shorebirds have gone south.

Photo by Bob Armstrong

Thanks to Jenifer Shapland for putting a name to the orange fungus.