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.

Field notes

Most of my recent trail walks have produced little sign of wildlife activity. But on a stroll in the Dredge Lake area, I saw a river otter in a bit of open water near the inlet of the Holding Pond. It soon dove under the ice and came up near the outlet, where the creek flows out to the river. I’ve seen otters here in other winters too and suspect they come up from the river to see if there are any fish to be had, not staying long. And at Point Louisa, there are sometimes scoters, goldeneyes, buffleheads, harlequins.

Over on north Douglas, a tight little bunch of sea lions surged past the boat ramp. A friend and I cruised the Outer Point/Rainforest loops while falling snow quickly covered lots of squirrel tracks. There were a few fresh tracks of a small bird, perhaps a junco, in the snow at the edge of the meadow. A big vole or a mouse had bounded across a gap between clumps of grass on the upper beach, making a leap of about seven inches. Goldeneyes nibbled along the rocks at the edge of the water and, a bit offshore, a little bunch of harlequins dove. Back in the woods, a wren darted out from under a foot bridge into a brushy tangle and then under a big log, not to be seen again.

That little wren is known as the Pacific wren, but it used to be called the winter wren, part of a species that nests widely across North America (and in Eurasia too). But taxonomists got busy and decided that these were really three different species, so they split the old classification and assigned new names. Now there’s the Eurasian wren (Troglodytes troglodytes), the Pacific wren (T. pacificus) that nests along the Pacific coast and in the Pacific Northwest, and the winter wren (T. hiemalis) that nests in the northern part of the eastern U.S. and adjacent Canada—but with a long westward extension of the breeding range out to northern British Columbia, where it overlaps with the Pacific wren.

Pacific wren. Photo by Bob Armstrong

Most of us could not tell these North American species apart by sight, although the Pacific wren is somewhat darker. But the vocalizations are known to be different. Where the ranges overlap in B. C., males of different song types held territories next to each other. Furthermore, singers of the different songs have different genetics, different enough to justify splitting them into separate species. Now we need information on what the females are doing…selecting males that match their own type?

And the taxonomists may have fun with another bird, known to us as Steller’s jay. Bird-watchers have noted the existence of plumage variation in various parts of the species’ range: Coastal jays have short black crests, blue forehead streaks, no eyebrow mark. Interior jays are similar but have a white eyebrow mark. Rocky Mountain jays have a long black crest and white marks on forehead and eyebrow. (In addition, jays in Guatemala and southern Mexico have blue, not black, crests.)

Coastal Steller’s jay. Photo by Kerry Howard

Geneticists got to work on comparing the Rocky Mountain jays with the Coastal/Interior jays and found significant genetic differences. That pair of populations is at least as different genetically as other pairs that are now accepted as different species: for instance, alder and Traill’s flycatchers, red-breasted and red-naped sapsuckers, white-crowned and white-throated sparrows. Furthermore, the Rocky Mountain jays occupy areas with different vegetation, a different climatic regime, and probably had a different history during glacial times.

So the researchers suggested some new names, perhaps officially becoming names of separate species. The Rocky Mountain forms might be called the long-crested jay (or perhaps the long-crested Steller’s jay), while the coastal/interior forms might be called the blue-fronted jay (or the blue-fronted Steller’s jay). More distinctions probably lurk down the taxonomic road!

Why bother with such distinctions?

From a scholarly perspective: sometimes, when we compare two very similar things (in this case, species), we discover that some tiny, subtle difference is actually not subtle at all but has significant ramifications for ecology and behavior. These discoveries expand our understanding. Furthermore, if two populations are sufficiently different to rank as separate species, they are capable of evolving in different, independent, directions, acquiring new, distinctive traits. Discovering those new directions increases our understanding of the ecological system.

In directly practical matters, distinguishing related but separate species is a useful tool for conservation: population trends can be monitored separately, not obscured by whatever is happening in the whole taxonomic complex. In this era of massive declines in many populations, it is useful to know how each population is faring.

Bricolage for October

A walk down the Boy Scout Camp trail was notable for the near-absence of birds—no geese out in the big meadow, no gulls on or over the sandbars in the broad estuary, no eagles perched on stumps or trees, no ducks fiddling about in the shallow or resting on the sands. Very odd! On the way back to the car, we saw two or three gulls flying around and one eagle on a snag. Where is everybody??

The most interesting observations were the tracks in the sandy slough of a mama bear and a cub, who had wandered along there before heading over to the forest. Around the edges of the meadow, in several places, we found groups of dug-up lovage plants, leaving reddish stems behind–Bear-digs, for sure, maybe done by the track-makers. Strangely, we found no scat piles in any of these places.

We paused for a snack on the beach and, of course, the opportunistic ravens were there almost immediately. One was clearly dominant over the other, racing in to grab proffered bits and leaving the other one to complain in the background. Only rarely could the one in the background scoot around to grab a morsel.

Back at my home pond, a pair of female-plumaged mallards had been consorting all through September, occasionally joined by a third. (I assumed they were the same ones—they got very used to my daily disturbances at the bird feeders nearby). I was becoming convinced that they really were females, because I’d seen many males elsewhere in good breeding dress. But in early October, I began to notice subtle differences between the two regulars. Oooops! One of those girls is a guy! He’s just now starting to show a touch of green on the head and a shading of rusty color on his chest. This fellow is far behind many other males; maybe he is much younger? And will the other one eventually turn into a male also? A hint maybe came a few days later, when there were four males on the pond, all just beginning to show breeding plumage.

A break in the clouds and in the tourist traffic encouraged me to check out Steep Creek. The coho were in, and from the footbridge I watched a tattered female hover persistently over a stretch of gravel, probably guarding a nest. Off to one side, in a quiet pool, there were ten or so big fish, all lined up very close together and facing downstream. A couple of Dolly Vardens huddled with the coho for well over an hour. My companions suggested that they might be having a committee meeting, deciding what to do. That huddle was a puzzle—the eagle perched on the bridge railing was long gone, and so was a dog that splashed into the water on the other side of the creek. What was that huddle about?

Dippers were foraging on the lower creek and near the footbridge, swimming where necessary and wading in the shallows, poking occasionally at some potential prey. I was hoping to see them pick up some drifting salmon eggs, but no luck. They often snatch up loose eggs, such tasty bite-sized morsels. They aren’t the only ones to feast on them…Dollies hang out by spawning females and gobble up the eggs, and eagles eat them in gobs from captured female salmon.

Photo by Matt Knutson

A friend reported seeing varied thrushes and robins foraging on mountain ash berries, observing that the birds had stuffed themselves but then became uncommonly still. If the berries are now fermented, perhaps the birds were a bit drunk and not steady enough to fly. That often happens late in a warm season. Some decades ago, in late summer back in Illinois, people would bring robins and waxwings to my lab, thinking they were sick. So I’d put the invalids in big cages, give them ordinary food and water, and leave them in peace. By the next day, they had recovered from their alcoholic binge and were ready to head out the window for more. Bird-doctoring was easy in such cases.

That foraging observation triggered other thoughts too. The mountain ash berry crops are huge this year; the trees just droop with the weight of the ripe fruits. But several folks have commented to me that they don’t see the usual gangs of fruit-eating birds taking advantage of the bounty this year. And others have remarked that they just don’t see many small birds at all, in contrast to previous autumns. The fall weather has been unseasonably warm; perhaps there will be an influx of fruit-eaters later? There is a huge, worrisome decline in avian abundance in North America and elsewhere that’s been taking place over the years, and more and more species are at risk of extinction. Is the paucity of local autumn observations part of that general decline or some more idiosyncratic, regional trend?

Photo by Kerry Howard

Cottonwood trees near the lower part of the Perseverance Trail were nearly leafless, their branches beautifully emphasized by fog. Farther up the valley, smaller cottonwoods graced the hillsides with shining golden leaves. As the fog lifted, it left drops of water on leaves and twigs, and the coming sunshine picked them out as points of silver.

Beaver notes

A spell of warm temperatures before the winter solstice let beavers continue stocking their caches with branches. Although adult beavers can live off stored fat for quite a while, young ones are still growing and need to eat. So a beaver family caches a nice pile of fresh branches not far from their lodge entrance. Here are excerpts from a Dredge Lake area trailcam video of a beaver systematically de-branching a little tree and toting away the branches for its cache. I noticed two uncommon things that this beaver did; readers might like to check the video and see if they can spot these two things. (**My two choices are given at the end of this essay; no peeking!).

The solstice came and went, but it will be a while before we can really sense the lengthening days. Meanwhile, a couple of days after the solstice, I wandered over to the Dredge Creek area. The recent deep freeze had covered the ponds with strong ice, shutting down beaver activity for a while. A snowfall had brightened the landscape and registered movements of small critters. I found a trail left by a shrew, making short bounds under a bush. Another shrew had trotted across an open space and under a log.

Shrew trail. Photo by Mary Willson

Bigger tracks were left by an otter moving up Dredge Creek. There was a little bit of open water just below the beaver dam we call Nemesis, and the otter had come up from under the ice of the Holding Pond, gone over the frozen splashes of the dam overflow and onto the frozen surface of Dredge Creek, disappearing upstream.

At the very end of the year, beavers at another lodge came out to work on their caches. Temperatures were absurdly mild, but snow had accumulated near the lodge.

Trail cam photo of a beaver exiting the lodge

While I’m thinking about beavers, I’ll take this opportunity to discuss them as carriers of disease. In a recent essay I mentioned tularemia, sometimes carried by beavers. But we hear more about another ailment, for which beavers are often blamed. Giardiasis is caused by Giardia, a one-celled protozoan that can infest the small intestine, causing diarrhea and other digestive distress in humans, cats, and dogs. There are several species of Giardia, specifically afflicting various kinds of animals (e.g., mice or birds or amphibians), but only one (commonly called G. lamblia) is known to parasitize humans as well as many other mammals. It seems that most of those mammals are asymptomatic carriers of Giardia; at least I found (so far) no reports of sickness except in humans, dogs, cats, and maybe pigs (all of which can also be asymptomatic carriers).

The life cycle of this parasite includes an active, reproductive phase (called a trophozoite), which multiplies in the airless intestine, and an inactive encysted phase. The disease is transmitted by the cysts, which are passed out of the digestive tract with feces (trophozoites may be excreted too, but they soon die). When another animal ingests fecal matter (directly or on vegetation, for example) or water with cysts, the cysts pass into the gut, where they open and release trophozoites, which feed and multiply rapidly. It can take up to two weeks for a new infection to produce symptoms.

Although the cysts can be passed from one animal to another by contact with fecal matter, they are more famously acquired from feces deposited in water. There can be thousands of cysts in one drop of water; they can persist for weeks and be taken up from water drops by swimmers or paddlers. The association with water, and thus with beavers, led to the affliction being called ‘beaver fever’. But that is totally unfair! At least in some areas, humans are the main transmitter of cysts, via improper disposal of sewage. Furthermore, muskrats, dogs, moose and deer, and many other mammals that defecate in or near water also contribute to the spread of the disease.

**Here are the uncommon activities that I noticed in the video. 1. One of the branches selected by the beaver appears to be dead—barkless, budless, and white. In another segment of video (not shown), a similar branch is also taken. No good for the food cache—beavers feed on the bark of living branches. Could they possibly be constructing something else? 2. This beaver held one branch in its mouth while chewing off a second one, and then dragged both branches off to the cache in one trip. The big space between the front, cutting, incisors and the grinding molars to the rear of the jaw is called a diastema. The lips can be closed behind the incisors when the beaver is chewing a branch off, keeping loose chips from going down its throat. This beaver, however, appears to hold the first branch in the diastema while gnawing at the second one.

Thanks to Jos Bakker for the trail cam photo and video.

Strolling on the snow

The deep snows this winter are too much for these little snowshoes we usually use here—one just postholes, and the enlarged feet have a hard time pulling up out of the hole. The old North Woods style of ‘shoe would be more suitable. But the little ‘shoes are what we have, so we tend to stick to the groomed trails, walking on the side of the trail as much as possible and avoiding disturbance of the classic tracks set by the groomer.

One day in late December, a friend and I strolled up Montana Creek, looking for signs of wildlife activity. But nary a track could be seen. Strange. Some distance up the trail, a bit of open water appeared, just a very narrow, intermittent channel. Friend wished for a dipper—and just on cue, one came around a curve, flitting downstream. It stopped briefly in each small opening in the ice but didn’t seem to find much to eat and eventually went farther downstream. But there wouldn’t be any open water there until it reached the Mendenhall River, so its explorations would have to continue. When streams are frozen, dippers often forage in intertidal zones.

The next week, we rambled around the Lower Loop at Eaglecrest, where critter-tracking is often rewarding. This day was no exception: there were weasel and porcupine trackways ranging widely; voles and shrews had scampered in and out of sheltered spots. Snowshoe hares had explored many places, usually under brush or low-hanging conifer branches, where the snow was not so deep.

There was not much sign of squirrel activity, just a few tramplings near some trees. I wonder if they were using tunnel systems under the deep snow—the squirrel that lives near my house seems to have long, well-used tunnels, which it often uses instead of traveling on the surface, popping up near what used to be a garden. I know that voles and shrews often scurry about below the snow, but they had appeared on the surface fairly commonly. So why not the squirrels– perhaps they weresnacking on things in their snow-buried middens??

Ptarmigan or grouse left their bipedal trackways, often in and around brushy thickets; they may have nibbled blueberry buds as they walked. One of these birds came up to a steep little bank on the edge of the trail and slid on its bum down the loose snow, to find its feet again at the bottom of the short slope.

I spent quite a lot of time in a spot where tracks were overlapping and complicated to sort out. Some were from hares, some from ptarmigan/grouse, but there were others also. Only a few of these others were clear enough to allow possible ID: maybe about an inch and a half wide, with five toes, one of them set back a little from the others.  Hmmm, quite possibly a marten! There was, however, no evidence of predation, so I can’t finish the story.

One critter that commonly leaves tracks near the Loop was missing from the records in the snow on this day: Deer tracks were conspicuous for their absence.

I was interested to see that the lower-most extension of the Loop, near the opening of the Treadwell Ditch trail, showed almost no sign of wildlife activity (just one vole track). I’d noticed this lack on other excursions up there. I have to wonder why so little activity is recorded there—the habitat is the same (to human eyes), so why is this part of the Loop apparently so un-used?

In early January, we walked up the Dan Moller trail, using the convenient snow-machine route, which was packed enough to walk without ‘shoes. Up through the meadows, looking for critter signs, but with little luck. The deep snow transformed the once-familiar landscape into unrecognizable terrain. A little imagination added to the fun; the heavy snows had laden the trees and stumps into wonderful shapes. One that caught my eye immediately was clearly an old woman, draped in her shawl, stooped over while mourning a dead companion at her feet.  Another was a small spruce whose top bore such a load of well-packed snow that it was bent into a full-curl ram’s horn. 

There’s no end to what you might find, if you go stravaiging around on our trails!

Four wintery walks

The thermometer at my house read eleven degrees (F) after a clear, starry night; the sky looked clear, although the sun wasn’t really up yet. Juneau had recently enjoyed about six feet of lovely snow, but many of the trails had not yet been used much. In search of a well-packed trail, a friend and I headed for the Boy Scout beach trail.

All went smoothly until we reached the junction where the trail splits three ways, and none of the splits looked good. We chose to go right out onto the goose meadow and immediately found ourselves breaking trail and post-holing through deep, crusty wind-blown drifts. Even following in the footprints of my companion, I (weighing forty pounds more) plunged and lunged, knee-deep and more. However, a hundred yards or so farther on, walking became a pleasure again, because the low vegetation was almost clear of snow, thanks to some recent super-high tides that left a few scattered cakes of frozen foam and to the wind.

Post-holing again out to the beach by the iconic cottonwood tree, we decided not to face the stiff, cold north wind that was churning up waters out in Lynn Canal. So, instead of coming back on the big, exposed beach, we turned toward the camp buildings, found a log, and had a little picnic in the sun. As soon as we got out our thermoses and lunch bags, two importunate ravens landed on the beach right in front of us—they knew the drill! Of course, we obliged them, tossing out bits of sandwich that they promptly snapped up. But they eyed a fragment of a sugar-snap pea with great suspicion and avoided going close to it—no veggies for them! One of them chose to sit next to us on the log for a while.

On this day in mid-December, the morning sun barely cleared the horizon. On the upper beach, I noticed that every isolated pebble cast a shadow much longer than itself, making a grid of conspicuous black stripes that called attention to each pebble.

The Chilkats across the canal were spectacular: the low morning sun made sharp contrasts between the sun-bright south-facing slopes and the intensely blue-shadowed north slopes. Behind us, the trees on the hillsides were individually defined by the snow they carried and on the peaks the snow delineated the minor topographical features very nicely.

Few critters were visible on this walk. A seal cruised by, just offshore, and gulls fossicked about in the tidal wrack. A wren zipped rapidly from trailside to shelter under some roots; they are so tiny, I wonder how they stay warm on frigid winter days. No midges or spiders crept on the snow surface.  But there were tracks of mink along the river, red squirrels in the woods, ermine and vole at the edge of the meadow; one or two small birds (who?) had hopped and run in the beach rye lining the meadow trail. A low-flying raven (?) left the mark of one wing-tip in the loose surface snow.

The next day was mostly sunny and, again, very cold (seven degrees at my house in the morning). I opted for snowdrift-free walk on the dike trail. A few tracks of squirrels and maybe an ermine were the only natural history notes of the morning until I had almost finished the walk. And there in the stand of willows was a female pine grosbeak, busily nibbling buds. I frequently see these grosbeak in fall and winter, as they forage on high-bush cranberry, carefully extracting the seed and dropping the red fruit pulp—the opposite treatment from that of bohemian waxwings, who eat the fruit and excrete the seed.

A couple of days later, the cold remained (just six degrees here). I had an idea to try some of the lower meadows along the Eaglecrest Road, but roadside parking was hard to find and the thought of plowing through deep snow, even on snowshoes, was daunting. So, on up the road to the Lower Loop, nicely groomed and unoccupied. The sun couldn’t make it up over the peaks, but ‘shoeing was easy.

There was not a live critter in sight but there were plenty of signs of life. A porcupine was into long-distance travel, heading straight across the meadow, not stopping to forage. Ermine had cruised all over the meadows in circuitous routes, looking for a juicy morsel. Snowshoe hare tracks were abundant, mostly under sheltering conifer branches or going from one shelter to another. Grouse or ptarmigan had been active, inspecting salmonberry and blueberry bushes for tasty buds and sometimes staying long enough to trample the snow flat. Except for a few squirrel marks, the smaller folk had left no signs on the surfacebut were no doubt active below.

A day or two later, it was still very cold. A group of friends strolled the dike trail, enjoying the bright sunshine as the sun crept over the peaks. A dusting of fluffy snow lay atop a snow crust. Several voles (I think) had made sorties out into the grassy areas, circling back to the trees or to holes under grassy tussocks; we noted at least seven of these trackways, well separated from each other. Looking through the chain-link fence and across a ditch, we saw tracks on a big snow drift that looked like Two-toes—but how could a deer walk up that crusty snow on those thin legs, without punching through, when humans (on our side of the fence) generally ended up post-holing?

Transition to winter

In early November, I walked along a gravel road in the company of frost-decorated branches. A mat of old leaves lined the roadway, each leaf fringed with crystals, making a pretty mosaic in tones of russet, old-gold, and brown. In an open area, I found a collection of more old leaves, not matted down, each one with a distinctive cover of frost crystals. Quite aside from the interesting physics that presumably accounted for the variety of crystals, every leaf was a thing of beauty. As the poet (John Keats) said: A thing of beauty is a joy forever…

Photo by Mary Willson

The Lower Loop at Eaglecrest in early-mid-November was a fine place for a walk. A bit of fresh snow lay on the meadows, and above the white blanket the tops of old seed heads and Labrador tea plants poked up –as individuals rather than part of a mass of faded greenery. Tawny-gold grasses stood tall and colorful on that background. Dainty little grasses draped their dangling seeds artistically. Tufty pine branches bore small caps of snow.

Conditions for finding evidence of several local denizens were perfect. Porcupines had traipsed hither and yon, exploring endlessly, it seemed. Every few yards, one of their trackways crossed the path, sometimes running parallel to the path for a while. One of them left a long, orange-yellow dribble as a mark of its passage.

Squirrels had made their well-beaten routes from tree to tree and across the path. A small bird, probably a junco, had hopped out of brushy area into the open. Voles had scampered about; one made a nice tunnel under the snow, revealed only in spots where the snow-roof had collapsed. A shrew left a narrow groove on top of the snow and then dove into a tiny hole under a clump of grass. Another trackway suggested that a deer mouse had been active, making quite long leaps with its sizeable hind feet.

A few days after that Lower Loop stroll, in hopes that sea-level rains meant snow had fallen at Eaglecrest, I went back up there. But even the Lower Loop had lost much of that earlier snow. So I trudged up the road, circled the Hilda Dam cabin, and came back down the Trickster run, and had some fun there. There was a thin layer of fluffy snow on top of a very thin crust. Snow covered the moss mats, but groves of moss sporophytes stood up above the snow. As usual, porcupines had wandered about, and squirrels had dared to cross some open spaces. In a little dampdrainage, a shrew had scurried over the surface, supported by that thin crust. A deer had run downhill, covering dozens of yards before jumping a log and going back into the woods.

I found a trampled cluster of indecipherable smudgy tracks near a few seed heads that had been demolished, leaving scattered fragments on the snow. On the top of the smudges, I saw what looked like ermine footprints. But, despite some hints, the smudges were a puzzle. A few minutes later, however, I found a long trackway going from one weed patch to another and noted that Smudgy was bipedal and big enough to break through the thin crust, disturbing the snow layer and disguising any toe marks. Ha! The prime suspect was probably a grouse.

Some days after that, I went with a friend to Eagle Beach State Park, to have a look at the vegetated sand flats in the river. A thin film of soft snow covered the ground. On the way, we saw that squirrels had been busy, crossing the path in several places. Along the river shore, rather recent flood waters had piled up great stacks of fallen trees and combed the herbaceous vegetation into orderly lines. A mink had run on the edge of the riverbank, but there were no bird tracks to be seen out there. Looping back through the campground, we found the trackway of a vole, scuttling across an opening and under some grasses.Near the parking lot, a raven had strolled over the lawn, but no ravens came to mooch any part of our lunches as we sat on the bench near the river.

Some nice big white flakes were falling, but they soon changed to rain (of course). Then we waited to see if the forecast snowfall actually happened…and it did! By Thanksgiving time, there had been several good snowfalls, although the streams were not yet iced-over. One day on Douglas, I saw several tiny, delicate flies flitting about and resting on the snow. According to a local expert, they were probably snow midges, whose larvae like cold-water streams and typically emerge as adults in winter.They are quite tolerant of cold temperature and may survive for many days, as they search for mates.

Tracks and king eiders

Early March brought us a lot of gray skies, but there was one spectacularly sunny day when there was deep, fresh snow at Eaglecrest. The parking lot was jammed, the slopes were thronged with down-hillers, but the nicely groomed lower Nordic loop was little used by humans, at least the morning I was there.

So a friend and I ambled around the loop on snowshoes, looking for tracks and hoping (in vain) to hear an early junco singing. There were a few deer and hare tracks, and a probable mouse. A raven had landed, punching deep in the snow and bracing a bit with one wing tip; then it walked a few feet and took off again—I wondered why it chose that particular spot. Here’s where an ermine dashed out from under a bush, bounded over the snow, and dove under the deep snow blanket. Oh look! Lots of bipedal three-toed tracks circling one blueberry bush after another… clearly a grouse or ptarmigan had come for lunch, nipping dozens of tiny buds off the blueberry twigs.

Just as we were about to move on from the bud-feeding area, we saw a small shrub at the side of the trail, poking up out of soft snow: a single stem with just a few twigs on top. Suddenly it quivered very noticeably, and then did it again. That movement was not caused by wind or a falling clump of snow or anything else detectable on the surface. So I suspect that some small critter under the snow was jostling the base of the stem. A lot goes on down there that we don’t see.

The next day was gray again. I made a quick trip to Point Louisa with another friend. I wasn’t expecting to see very much, because the tide was way out. But when we got out on the point, a gaggle of bird watchers had gathered, drawn by reports that some king eiders were seen there. The watchers were what I call ‘real birders’, who keep up on recent sightings and often carry telescopes as well as binoculars and don’t need to consult the field guides to know what birds they are seeing.

Just off-shore was a big crowd of scoters that even I could identify, along with a few harlequin ducks and goldeneyes. The birders assured me that mixed in with that lot were two female king eiders and even graciously loaned me the use of a telescope. After lots of finger-pointing and information on just where in that big flock I should look, I think I finally saw them—two brownish ducks with smaller bills than those of the scoters. A first, for me!

Photo by Kerry Howard

King eiders nest on the coastal tundra way up north, with the males then in their colorful breeding dress. There they feed on invertebrates in the freshwater ponds. Most of the birds that nest up there spend the winter in the Bering Sea, where they dive for benthic invertebrates.

However, some of them wander down our way at times. In addition to some records from Gustavus, there are records, over several years, of sightings from Sandy Beach to Eagle Beach—that stretch of coast is, of course, where most of the local birders are active; it seems likely that the eiders occur sporadically up and down the coast. Most of the sightings have been in winter and early spring. I have to wonder what brings them to our area…

The birds in the big flock were bobbing about peaceably (https://vimeo.com/520231569). The scoters were diving and coming up with prey, usually a mussel. When a scoter surfaced with prey in its bill, it shook its head with the prey securely clamped in the bill, perhaps to jettison some indigestible bits and extra water. Meanwhile, the eiders were cruising around among the scoters, occasionally dipping down to grab things not far below the surface. I suspect that all those paddling feet and diving birds stirred up small invertebrates, making them more accessible to the eiders. Perhaps the eiders also occasionally snatched up edible fragments that were accidentally discarded by the scoters.

Thanks to Doug Woodby and Mary Hausler for the loan of their telescope and guidance on where to look, and to Gus van Vliet for helpful consultations. Thanks also to Kerry Howard for the photo and to Bob Armstrong for the video.

February scrapbook

Winter finally arrived sometime in early February, with good snow on the ground and very cool temperatures. I’ve lived here for three decades, so I’m quite well acquainted with Juneau’s local microclimates—it’s often warmer, wetter, and windier downtown than it is in the upper Valley where I live. But I recently saw what seemed to be an extreme case: as I drove Out the Road one morning, I left my house at a temperature of minus six degrees (F), then the car thermometer registered plus thirteen, dropped quickly to minus two, and rose again to plus fourteen degrees. That’s a twenty-degree span in fewer than twenty minutes. Extraordinary.

Along the way, I passed a place where a thin blanket of white mist lay over an estuary and shallow inlet. We often see this phenomenon in cold weather and sometimes call it ‘sea smoke’ or ‘steam’. But it’s not steam…steam is hot water vapor, and it’s not really smoke, either…not full of organic particles and carbon dioxide. Whatever the right name is, the cause is well-known. Liquid fresh water cannot be colder than thirty-two degrees (or it would become ice). So the surface of the estuary was warmer than the frigid air and water was evaporating. When that rising water vapor encountered the cold air, which holds less water than warm air does, it condensed into small droplets that hung over the water surface in thin mist.

I met a friend at the Point Bridget trailhead and we set off to see what we could find. The best find was the trail of an otter, bounding and sliding over flat ground and out onto the frozen beaver pond. Even on the flat, this otter was sliding as much as eight feet before gathering itself for another bound and slide. Wouldn’t that be fun to do! Blowing snow had drifted into some other tracks, but we found those of porcupine, moose, and a deer or small moose; red squirrels had made new highways under some of the trees.

A stiff breeze was churning Lynn Canal into a froth and big waves were roaring onto the beach where we look out at Lion’s Head. By the time we got there, it was afternoon and the wind was increasing, as it often does then. So the beach log where we often perch for lunch was not very hospitable. Even behind the beach berm, the wind was making the emergent tall grasses lie almost flat on the snow. So we found a windbreak in a sunny spot for a comfortable lunch.

Home again, with temperatures a relatively balmy plus sixteen degrees. The birds were active on the feeders, among them ‘my’ pair of red-breasted nuthatches. They brought two youngsters to the feeders one day last summer but they have apparently stayed on their territory for the winter. Each pair is socially monogamous; there apparently have been no studies of extra-pair matings (which are common in many other birds). Nuthatches defend their territories from other nuthatches; the male is especially vigorous in defense when the pair is excavating a nest in a dead tree. They also defend the nest cavity from red squirrels, which are potential predators of eggs and chicks.

Nuthatches have the odd habit of putting sticky conifer resin around the opening of the nest cavity. It is thought that this helps deter predators. One study found that more resin was placed around the nest entrance right after a face-off with a squirrel. Rarely, however, this tactic backfires, and one parent gets inextricably stuck in the resin and dies.

After the nest is built, females incubate five to eight eggs and the male brings her food. Incubation takes about twelve days and chicks stay in the nest for almost three weeks. Sometimes the male joins the female in the nest during incubation and brooding very small chicks. After the chicks fledge, the parents feed them for another two weeks and then the youngsters sometimes stay with the parents for many weeks, or they may become independent and disperse. Most nuthatches probably live only a few years; the maximum known lifespan is just over seven years.

Nuthatches forage by walking up and down and around tree trunks and big branches, especially in winter, presumably because dormant arthropods lurk in the crevices. They can walk head-first down a tree trunk and even walk upside down underneath a branch. They have a very short tail, not usable for bracing again the wood as woodpeckers and creepers do. Having a relatively long hind toe helps them scamper down and sideways. Outside of the winter season, they also forage on twigs and leaves, even on the ground sometimes, and occasionally catch insects out of the air.

Photo by Gwen Baluss

Captured food is often cached in holes and crevices, sometimes covered with bits of lichen or bark. A big item is wedged into a crack and then hacked into smaller bits (unlike chickadees, which hold such items in their feet). In fact, their English name may have originally been nut-hacker. At a seed feeder, nuthatches can be very choosy, carefully selecting the largest and heaviest items.

Little appears to be known about how they manage in extremely cold weather. They do join mixed-species foraging flocks in winter, along with chickadees, kinglets, and other small birds. Presumably their insulation is quite good, but they don’t seem to roost communally or have elevated metabolic rates then (as some other birds do). More questions to be answered!