2008 April Observations · 699 days ago by Julie Loyd
Photos will follow later. Since April isn’t over yet, these aren’t complete yet.
08.apr.01Snow! Glen R: 20:40: Heard Western Screech Owl by airstrip parking lot last night.
08.apr.02Glen R: 12:50 p.m. Saw Red Tailed Hawk slightly higher than treetop level Mail Pay pasturelands. 13:00 – 17:30 pm.: Round trip walk Farm Bay landing to Point Hammond. Clear, temp=52. Wind variable 2-12 mph out of N.E. Low tide 9:45 am=4.9 ft. Hi tide 2:45 p.m=6.5 ft. Lo tide 9:10pm=1.0 ft. In Farm Bay, saw approx 18 bufflehead, 9 goldeneyes, 4 gulls, 9 red breasted mergansers, 1 raven. At Point Hammond saw one eagle carrying something (could have been small stick bundle) to trees back from highest part of East bluff, and making a lot of screeching for some minutes. On shore: 9 harlequins in 2 groups, one of 4 on Pt Hammond Annex occasional courtship displays, mostly resting on rocks. Other Harlequin group fishing nearby in Huntley lagoon. Also at Pt Hammond about 9 gulls on rocks and one curious unidentified shorebird sleeping on one leg on Annex rocks: slightly bigger than robin, long legs. Gray head and upper body, white midsection to tail. Belly bottom black. Long, 2 inch skinny curved bill. Closest description in Sibleys is of a Black Bellied Plover. I have good video. Also from Pt Hammond could see about 25 harbor seals hauled out on Bare Island.
Between about shoreline fronting Farm Bay produce processing area and where the shoreline rough walking rocks S side of Little Hammond. Estimated shoreline coverage was 800 lineal feet. Conservative guess is saw approx 5000 – 8,000 juvenile salmon. Counted various ways. ½ of area had average density of 10 per lineal shoreline foot. Approximately half of area no fish. School sizes varied from 50 to 300 fish, with some larger schools continuous 100 yards long and sometimes in densities of 300 fish in 3 lineal feet of shoreline. Most were in water about 5-10 feet from shore and 1-2 feet depth. They did not like larger solid cobbles, but occasional rocks ok. Mostly they liked gravel. Only saw fish on walk out before high tide. Saw none on walk back which was a couple hours after high tide. Wasn’t sure whether they were forage fish when first saw. Used long handled dipnet to catch. Out of approx 12-15 net swipes at various places along this stretch: 10% of swipes empty return. 40% of swipes 1-2 fish. 30% of swipes 3-8 fish. 20% of swipes caught 9 to 50 fish. Looked at them in a quart jar, using 2 keys to sort out. Have video of fish in jar. All were salmon, no forage fish. Unaware of any mortality. Approximately 50% of the swipes returned only Pink salmon from 30mm (1 1/4 inch) to 50 mm (2 inch). Approx 10 % of swipes returned only chum salmon from about 50-65 mm. Approx 40% of swipes returned mixed populations of both chum and pink, with pink usually slightly more numerous. Also some larger ones in the mixed swipe collections, approx 60- 70 mm, could be juvy chinook. Parr marks about disected by lateral line, much larger than vertical height of eye, etc. As far as could tell, all fish had adipose fins.
Julie L: Frost in the morning. Robins everywhere. Daffodils, pink-flowering currant, maples in bloom. In the early morning, heard the Bandtail Pigeons (? – coo ROO coo, coo, coo) that live in the cedar grove behind our cabin for the first time this year.
08.apr.03Julie L: Heavy frost this morning. Sunny afternoon. Camilla found a miniature caterpillar at the school. Hummingbirds at Isa’s.
08.apr.04Glen R: 15:30 p.m about high tide. DD says seeing 1-12 inch salmon jumping in Severson Bay at B’s. This is the 4th winter in a row that this size salmon are there in Severson in March/April time period. I really tink they are Coho, as I have caught coho like this before when seeing ‘shaker’ salmon jumping. Severson Bay and Cowlitz Bay have had these sub-adult salmon the last 5 winters at least. I went to place at 5-7pm, in outgoing tide. Saw no jumping salmon. Did see a pair of Common Murres come by about 100 feet from shore, also a pair of Common Loons ranging 30 -300 feet from shore. 3 pairs of r.b mergansers came by shallows, heads down butts in air as they swam by back and forth about 30 feet from shore.
08.apr.09Julie L: Very light frost this morning. Ilsa Huntley found a Striped Nudibranch, or Armina Californica in the rocks by Cooks’ Cove. These molluscs lie buried on the sea bottom, (from the low intertidal zone to 250 feet deep) during the day and come out at night to feed on sea pens. So, we probably have sea pens off of Severson Bay.
08.apr.10No frost this morning. Nuthatches calling.
2008 March Observations · 699 days ago by Julie Loyd
Photos will follow later.
08.mar.01Gretchen W: In previous years at this time, the noise from the frogs outside her doorway was deafening. Now, there are only one or two calling.
Julie L: Sunny, sweater but not coat weather. 13:00 – 17:00 low tide beach walk from Fishery to Mail Bay. Saw 20 ish gulls, two Bald Eagle, few Buffleheads, few Harlequins, a few other ducks, no mammals. Lots of otter scat on driftwood, looks like they’re eating crabs. Didn’t see any small fish in the water at Hammond or Little Hammond.
On trail between Appel’s beach and Mail Bay, stinging nettles are up to a foot high, and elderberries are showing up to 5 inches of leaves at joints. There was even a blooming red-flowering currant! At my house, they’re not ready yet.
Glen R: 3:40 -5:15 p.m. Sunny, clear, temp=52; wind < 12 mph from SW. Hi tide=7.4@ 10.am; lo tide= .7@ 6:20 p.m. Roundtrip (each way 1/4 mile) walk Cowlitz from rockier beach by McGraws to rockier beach base of incline N.C. cliffs. Saw: 6 Red-breasted Mergansers, 6 Surf Scoters, 12 Vuffleheads, 4 Goldeneye. Approx 70 Gulls (40% sure of I.D. as Mew Gulls). Gulls wading, rarely dipping heads in water.
3-2-08Glen R: Flocks of 30+ (possibly hundreds) robins at Mail Bay pastures, Farm (Mittelstadt’s) Bay fields. Flocks of dozens of robins in fields middle of Sandy Point road. Rolf Thorson says he has suddenly seen large flocks appearing here in last week or so.
08.mar.04Pirouze B: There are lots of frogs at her place.
Glen R: Moderate frost in morning. 9 am heard Bandtail Pigeon in South Mail Bay woodlands.
08.mar.05David L: 7:00 summer-like group (3 – 4 dozen) of Pigeon Guillemots just inside Point Disney, first time (did not observe yesterday). Pair of Harbor Seals just beyond moorings.
Glen R: 12:45-1:30 p.m. Sunny, clear, temp=55. Wind<4 mph. Perused beach both ways from path perch in front of McGraw area. 63 gulls, 17 Red-breasted Mergansers, 6 Goldeneye (60% sure this ID).
Saw a crow drama over five minutes. A single crow flew with something in beak about 75 meters down rocky beach area. From about 8 feet height it dropped object (about 3/8 diameter, dark), pirouetted and landed, where it pecked around <2 seconds then picked up object, flew off opposite way down beach. About 75 yards away, it repeated the same routine: drop, pirouette, brief peck around, pick object, fly off opposite direction. Its flight back and forth were to about the same rock clusters on each end of the flight. It certainly appeared that the crow was not picking up the same object each time. Where the crow landed each time and picked up an object, it was several feet away from where the object hit the ground. With binoculars I never saw object bounce. This routine went on about 10 round trips. On about trips 6-9, 2 other crows flew over to see what the crow had caught and the subject crow exhibited evasive manuevers. These other crows up-close half-heartedly inspected the subject crow on later flights, and then abandoned their interest on about trip 9. After trip 10, the subject crow flew off down the beach and didn’t return to the area before I left.
I heard a Pileated Woodpecker in the south Mail Bay woodlands.
08.mar.08Glen R: 15:15 – 17:30 pm.; roundtrip walk (with Jim Johanssen coastal processes group) from Nature Conservancy trailhead on road to east end of the lower lagoon and return. Thin sunny overcast, low 40s, wind < 17 mph (variable). Low tide 11:20 am =2.6; hi tide 5:40 p.m.=7.7. In upper pond saw seven American widgeons. At area near where bluff incline meets the beach saw 5 salmon jump in half hour period (15:40-16:10) 12-16 inches, about 30 -100 ft from shore. Saw heron in lower lagoon. 4 Red-breasted. Mergansers, about 18 Buffleheads. Ollie Wilgress found a chunk of coal on beach, If natural, Jim Johannsen said they were probably 40 million years old, arrived from up north.
3-8-08 saw large bat, 10” wingspan at 9 pm overhead South Mail Bay woodlands.
Julie L: TNC 15:00, overcast. On the trail, there was scat (owl? fox? probably not otter?) with white and grey feathers in it. A very long black and yellow errant garter snake at the beaver dam.
08.mar.09Glen R: 10 a.m-13:00 pm; roundtrip walk (with Johanssen group) Point Hammond farm to Huntley lagoon and return. Cloudy, 40-50 degrees. Wind at 10 mph early, then becoming < 2 mph at 12 noon. High tide 7:10 am = 8.9; Low tide 1 p.m.=1.4. Saw about 60 robins in flocks around orchard. 2 ravens. Between Farm Bay landing and Little Hammond saw approx 22 Buffleheads. About 16 Red-breasted mergansers, 1 Common Loon, 3 female Scoters. 2 Glaucous-wing Gulls. Between Little Hammond and Otter Point saw 2 Oystercatchers, 2 Harlequin Ducks. At Otter Point saw 1 cormorant in water, 1 heron on beach. Could see 5 seals hauled out on Bare Island. 1 seal in Huntley lagoon, along with 5 Harlequin Ducks, 1 river otter.
In Mail Bay woodlands 17:00 pm heard Pileated Woodpeckers, Rufous-sided Towhees, r.b. nuthatches, ravens, Varied Thrush. Seeing flock of about 15+ Pine Siskins daily.
Julie L: At home, woodpeckers are calling. Red-flowering Currant is pink and flowering. The first daffodils are open, though there are also some that aren’t even thinking of budding yet. The alders puff pollen when you throw sticks at them (don’t ask). Lots of robins hop around in the grass, and at 15:00 we saw some kind of small hawk swoop through the robins, landing on the rock wall 10 feet from the house, sans robin.
3-12-08 Glen R: 18:00 pm – 19:15p.m. round trip walk from West edge Cowlitz lower lagoon to bluff start at East end. Hazy, temp at 48. Water glassy smooth. 15:30 pm Lo tide= -.8; Hi tide 23:30 p.m. = 7.6;
Saw approx 45 Buffleheads, 23 Red-breasted Mergansers, 5 Surf Scoters, 4 crows in wrack, 1 cormorant, 1 Harbor Seal, 40 scattered gulls mostly Mew Gulls. Saw about a 10 inch salmon jump in about 2 feet deep of water, in front of west end of lower lagoon.
08.mar.14Glen R: 15:45, Cowlitz Dock. Partly cloudy after morning rain. Water glassy. Temp 55º Plum trees blooming. High tide at 10:00 low mid-afternoon. Water clear. A flock of
5 Red-breasted Mergansers cruising <5’ from shore in rocks 75 – 150 yards south of dock. About 10 other Red-breasted Mergansers in bay.
5 Goldeneye in vicininty of Frances’ Cove.
4 Surf Scoters further out.
Appx 15 Buffleheads
Flicker & Pileated Woodpecker in madronas at dock head. – Glen R
08.mar.15 Glen R: 9 a.m. to 12 noon. Roundtrip walk from upper parking lot P.O. down to Francis Cove, along beach to mid-lower N.C. lagoon; back along trail past upper swamp. Overcast, temps low 40s, wind generally <12 mph. Hi tide=7.8 @ 10:45 a.m. Some plums in bloom along road. At sunnier cliff spots, Oregon Grape in bloom. Scared a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers resting off rocks Frances’ lagoon. Tried shore fishing with salmon gear intermediately along beach, no fish sign anywhere. 10 Canada Geese came by, as did a kingfisher at bluffs. At Ditch rocks just west of shore opening, a concentration of about 40 gulls, offshore 100 yds about 30 Buffleheads. Along rest of beach stretch saw 1 killdeer, 1 cormorant, approx 15 r.b. mergansers, pair of surf scoters, 20 gulls, approx 8 goldeneye, 25 more bufflehead.
Barry M. met me near lower lagoon where we saw one river otter, 2 pairs mallards, one pair r.b. mergansers,1 Red-winged Blackbird in cattails. At beaver pond above we saw <6 r.w. blackbirds proclaiming. Saw 2 Turkey Vultures perched in tree far pond edge, which lifted skyward when an adult Bald Eagle passed by, and later returned to tree when eagle left. In water approx 25 buffleheads scattered, 4 goldeneye, 4 mallard, one unidendified duck. Saw 24+ Violet- green Swallows flying over pond, mostly North end. Heard Ruby-crowned Kinglets come by while in Large Maple flats. Immature eagle flew treetop height 40 overhead on way back to parking lot. Drove off. On road uphill from T saw about 20 Northern Flickers in group.
Julie L: The frogs are calling from the Adams’, daffodils are about 50% in bloom, some rock tulips. Some of the Red-flowering Currant is wilted.
COASST walk 15:30: Brilliant sun, 50 degreesish, slight breeze. At Hammond, a Great Blue Heron, a Bufflehead pair, six Harlequin Ducks, two Oystercatchers. On the rocks, zillions of what might be fucus saplings or whatever they call themselves, swarming with gnats. No seals or eagles.
On the way back, we noticed two clumps of whelks (a predatory sea snail about an inch long), about 100 per clump, on some rocks just at the low-tide line where the water was lapping. There were yellowish grains about the size and shape of rice near the rare open spots between whelks, which we speculated were their eggs.
In the evening it rained.
08.mar.17Glen R: 13:45 – 14:00, Cowlitz Dock. High tide about now at 7+. Cloudy, intermittent sprinkles earlier. Temp 49º. Wind 15 mph out of SW. Saw 24 seabirds,
8 Goldeneye
others mostly Buffleheads
some Red-breasted Mergansers
some Surf Scoters
No gulls, no mammals. All but 3 birds (1 Red-breasted Merganser, 2 female Goldeneye) are out from Frances’ Cove.
Overcast temp=45, wind<5 mph. Red currants in blooms. Saw 4 swans fly over over South Mail Bay woodlands, about 100 ft above trees, from NE to SW. Tony S later said no swans at swamp.
08.mar.19David L: 16:30, Cowlitz Dock. First sighting this year of small fish on surface near dock, evidently salmon.
08.mar.21Glen R: saw first hummingbird, (Rufous) in Mail Bay Woodland, on red currant bushes.
08.mar.25Cathy Mc: North Bay. We found a big-ass octopus on the beach by my cabin today.
08.mar.26Glen R: Saw first ‘Morning Cloak’ butterfly. Seemed interested in either Nettles or Himalayan Blackberries. Mail Bay Woodlands: been catching both gold/drab small butterflies and white/ black butterflies, both < 1 inch wingspan. Lots of them fluttering around. White ones have black and white pattern, gold ones have hind wind gold, fore wing is not. No, I don’t think i’ts an Island Marble.
08.mar.27Glen R: 15:30, Cowlitz Dock. Snow flurries yesterday. High 30’s now with rain, wind <3mph about now low tides
Pair Hooded Mergansers at dock
4 Goldeneye
1 Red-necked Grebe
2 female Red-breasted Mergansers
4 Surf Scoters
Isa D: Cold, rainy. Forty-eight robins in my field all at once. In general, there seems to be an inordinate number of robins on my place this year, like four times what I usually see.
08.mar.30Glen R: been hearing Band Tailed pigeons the last few days at South Mail Bay Woodlands.
Julie L: COASST walk to Pt. Hammond. At Hammond, 2 Oystercatchers, 6 Harlequin ducks. Water had washed entirely over the tombolo. We found a teensy kelp plant in the wrack, from holdfast to bulb to fronds.
08.mar.31Julie L: 13:00 Went to Cooks’ Beach with the schoolkids in a light snow. There, the sand had been pretty thoroughly rearranged, with berms and gravel in unexpected places. Grey plum-sized sea sponges had been washed up into the wrack line. Glenda says these sponges appear twice a year at North Beach. When we left at 15:00, the sun came out.
Views of Hammond tombolo March 2 and 16.
2008 January Observations · 699 days ago by Julie Loyd
Photo uploads to follow.
08.jan.06 Stan W: Saw the following at Mail Bay: A pair of Golden-crowned Kinglets, 12-15F, 24-30M Buffleheads, 1m Common Goldeneye, 2male Harlequins, 2f 2m Red breasted Mergansers, 2 Horned Grebes,1 Bald Eagle, one Raven. Stan took the photo at left in December, of a juvenile Bald Eagle (distinguishable from a Golden by its yellow beak).
Glen R: 1:45 pm Point Hammond farm 9 geese in orchard, saw 48 Canada geese there about 10 days ago. Went down to beach to walk Farm Bay landing to Otter Point. Hi tide at 1:30 p.m. wind out of SSE <25 mph. Temps low 40s. Overcast. Recent high tides in storm combos took out a lot of shore edge. Lots of small pieces of plastic in driftwood at Oyster Rocks. Saw 3 buffflehead 75 yards from shore in front of garden dogleg. Between there and Otter Point saw 1 horned grebe, 2 gulls, 1 d.c. cormorant, 2 male harlequin ducks (75 meters offshore). Stopped at Otter Point. Watched 2 ravens cruise cliff edge to South from there. 2 minutes later an immature bald eagle cruised same path. 2 minutes later an adult bald eagle came cruising along shore southbound, about 50 feet overhead. Sat an watched an adult bald eagle perched at Point Hammond Snag overlook. 6 red breasted mergansers flew by low southbound.
David L: Caught a baby fish, probably sand lance, in Cowlitz plankton tow, tried again in President’s channel and caught another baby fish. Exciting, especially since when we did the forage fish egg search some years ago, no forage fish eggs were found. We now have proof that the eggs must have been somewhere, even if we didn’t find them.
08.jan.07 Julie and Camilla L: Frost this morning, hail this afternoon. Eight ducks (female buffleheads?) at Adams’ pond.
Tony S and Isa D: There are more birds around now. Few ducks on the water. The mallards and Widgeons stay on freshwater until it freezes.
Glen R: 7 a.m. clear. Like often lately still a pair of great horned owls hooting aound South Mail Bay woodlands.
08.jan.08 Julie L: Some pockets of hailstones still on the ground.
08.jan.09 Julie L: Three beach seines at Cowlitz, Frances’ Cove, TNC, 10:00 – 12:30. Cloudy, wind <12 mph, tide high and rising, air temp 8ºC, water temp at dock 7ºC. Fish: 2 7” smelt, 2 3” sculpins, 2 1” salmon-shaped fish, 6.5” tubesnout, 2.5” round fish with a suction belly, 3 sanddabs. Amazing thing of the day: We caught a salmon, over 12 inches long, very fat, but it got away before we could identify it. Birds: 5 Buffleheads, 3 Bald Eagles, 4 Horned Grebes, 1 Surf Scoter, 15 Crows, 1 Common Merganser.
Stan W: while waiting for David in Mail Bay this noon saw about 4 eagles soaring
over the B’s point. Sea gulls in the bay and flying over, maybe 5-6. On the way to the library near Heaters a small flock of Golden-crowned Kinglets. They were in the road and hung around for a bit. They are cute.
08.jan.10 Julie L: Plankton count at Adams’. Fish fry found in samples from the first of the month. Possible sand lance, kelp greenling?
08.jan.12 Stan W: Mail Bay: 3 -5 Brown creepers. Nuthatch with creepers.
08.jan.13 Stan W: Mail Bay: A good birding day: Ravens, for breakfast and lunch.
Golden crowned kinglets, by woodshed, 4-6?.
Yellow crowned sparrows, in blackberries, small flock 10-15.
Purple finch, 1 with ycs, another at feeder.
Song sparrow with ycs
Juncos many at feeder
Towhees, several with ycs flock 6 or so at feeder
Robins, flock 10-15?
Flickers 6-8
Buffleheads, a pair and later 7m, 2f in mail bay
Red breasted grebe. I watched for 10 minutes as he ingested a flat fish may 6 inches long
Double crested cormorants,
Black turnstones, 4-8 , Beckstroms’ point
Surfbirds, 2 with black turnstones
Kingfisher
Crow 3-4
Starlings flock
08.jan.15 Fred and Donna A: Two plankton tows at Severson and North Bays, 15<1cm fish at North Bay. Other critters in the sample included hyperiid gammaraids, which are larger than the sand lances!
08.jan.16 Julie L: COASST walk in the late afternoon to take advantage of low tide around 17:00. Dark clouds, no wind, cold. Strong tidal rip. We watched a seal, an otter, and a string of ducks (possible surf scoters?) ride the current from Hammond to the clay point and then go back and do it again. At Hammond, a Great Blue Heron, a juvenile Bald Eagle, 10 Harlequin Ducks, and a very noisy flock of 100 crows and 200 gulls.
08.jan.17 David L: Two plankton tows at Cowlitz and TNC, one <1cm fish at TNC
08.jan.18 Julie L: A series of very dark weeks, though it hasn’t rained the whole time. In the afternoon, a pileated woodpecker spent some time pecking at the apples rotting on our tree. Our cats bring in winter wrens, and, earlier this week, a kinglet with a vivid orange crown. Juncos around the fruit trees.
Camilla L: Saw a flock of small yellowish birds with yellow heads.
08.jan.19 JL: Rain, rising wind.
08.jan.20 JL: Northeaster forecast for last night, but it took until midday to really kick in. Around 9:00, lots of small birds in a bare alder at the quarry. Around 15:00 at Cowlitz, four large ducks, 1 b&w male, 3 females (surf scoters??) at rock, 12 crows on dock posts, relatively gentle waves to the base of the bluffs.
08.jan.23 JL: Frost on grass all day today and yesterday. Chirping birds in pine trees along Charlie’s Road. The cats have been bringing in Orange-crowned Kinglets and Winter Wrens. Laurie Glenn found a very dead loon near her beach.
08.jan.24 JL: 8:00, Cowlitz, freezing weather. Images: a Bufflehead male and a pair of ducks near the rock reef below the P.O. At Deer Harbor, a crow and a gull were working on a disemboweled ratfish. The graspers at the anal fin show that it’s a male.
08.jan.26 JL: Unabated freeze through today, more forecast. A Pileated Woodpecker in our apple tree at 10:00 a.m.
08.jan.27 JL: Frozen pellets on the ground this morning. It hailed again at least three more times before midnight. Image at left of gulls at Sandy Point. Not too many birds in the water, ten or so smallish ducks, one pair larger ducks.
08.jan.30 JL: Thaw today.
Images of tombolo at Pt Hammond, Left: January 17, 2008, right: Feb 4, below right: Feb 7 of 2007.
2008 February Observations · 700 days ago by Julie Loyd
08.feb.01 Five beach plankton tow. Here is a fish found at Severson Bay.
08.feb.03 COASST walk to Pt Hammond, 14:30, cold, sunny, lots of churned-up wrack such as 1/2 foot long kelp stipes, entire eelgrass plants, and shreds of other seaweed. At Hammond: a Great Blue Heron, 2 Bald Eagles, 10 Buffleheads, 30 gulls, 12 Mergansers, 1 Harlequin, a fish head, and Stan W.
08.feb.04 JL: 8:00 the Pileated Woodpecker in our yard is very busy with the rotting apples.
08.feb.06 Chris W 17:50. Snowshowers and rain, windy. At dusk, walking down Beezie’s Lane, I could hear two sounds simultaneously: one was a rather high squeaky sound almost like part of a cat’s meow, and the other, a Great Horned Owl sound –(just as described on 12/30/07 by Glen Riley) – a repeated single note of the Horned Owl’s. Hurrying toward the house, I could see the silhouettes on the ground between the fireplace stonework on the West end of the house and the big Garry Oak tree.
A big owl flew up from the ground (clearly a Horned Owly by size though I couldn’t discern the horns) and away to the East over Ludwig’s field and trees, while the other form was still on the ground. As I got closer, it too flew, going West over the trees. Was this an amorous coupling?
Seen in L’ring’s back driveway these last couple of weeks, a big Helvella mushroom (looks as though Julie’s photo is of the same type, the bottom-most picture from Severson’s Lane).
Also these last weeks, lots of Golden-crowned Kinglets feeding on the roadways, and in the woods. Next to Henry’s drive, one Ruby-crowned Kinglet was seen this week.
08.feb.10 Jannick R says he’s been leaving rats out for the ravens. Unlike in other years, this year a raven has flown over but not stopped for a snack. Mike C says the same thing happens when he sets out chum for the ravens – no bites. Why not?
At Janice and Jannick’s pond, a single chorus frog was heard recently but there really is no interesting activity there. The red alder buds are red, but no sign of the leaves.
17:00 at Sandy Point, very low tide, two or three gulls and an ice-cream sunset.
08.feb.14 Chris W: Red-winged blackbirds heard on Valentine’s Day from beach below Ralph’s swamp early evening, 5: ish.
08.feb.16 JL: Nuthatches singing from the direction of the Adams’ this morning. People have been saying that they don’t hear as many birds in the morning as in other years. (April update: That was before the robins came back.)
Photos are of turnstones and octopus segment at Hammond.
08.feb.20 JL; 18:00 at Cowlitz, dusk, saw three bats flittering around near the Post Office madrona.
08.feb.23 JL: Another brilliantly clear day. The crocuses are blooming, red-flowering currants, plums, and daffodils not.
08.feb.26 David L: Light frost last night, after above freezing weather. Lots of robins at the Post Office.
08.feb.26 Glen R: saw large bumblebee at Winnies, red dead nettle beginning to bloom, also last summers brocs blooming.
5:15-6:30 p.m Cloudy, wind<1mph, temp=50 fh. Hi tide 7.0 @ midnite approx. Round trip walk Farm Bay landing to Little Hammond. Heard killdeer in fields. No seals or fish seen on walk. In area around Seaweed Rendezvous to Little Hammond about 35 seabirds, mixed: 20 approx 20 buffleheads, 4 goldeneye, 3 gulls, 6 scoters, 2 d.b. comorants.
08.feb.26 Josie S: 13:40, TNC Cowlitz beach below martin house poles, Calm, overcast following a sunny morning, water clear as viewed from top of TNC bluffs. A few Mew and Glaucous-winged Gulls idled at water’s edge. I took a sample, just ‘cause, and came up with green-looking gammarids, for one thing.
08.feb.27 Glen R: saw fleeting butterfly (30% chance Mylitta Crescent, 30% chance West Coast Lady, 40% chance other) pass by shoulder at field west of Lower Conservancy swamp. Heard killdeer same place.
Julie L: Several Great Horned Owls calling in the Burns’ woods. Light rain in the afternoon, the first in some days. Red-flowering currants, maples, and plums are budding. Crocuses are blooming.
David L: Birds are feeding in the shallows of the water. Smallish oil streaks, possibly indicating herring. Two or three weeks ago there was a scummy surface on the water. Kelp is drifting around outside of Cowlitz. Water clarity is about 10 feet.
Tombolo from end of Feb, 2008
2007 December Observations · 828 days ago by Julie Loyd
07.dec.01 – 02 Julie L: Mild Northeast outflow, snow. Winter wrens on the roads.
07.dec.03 Julie L: 14:00 It’s 20 degrees F warmer than yesterday. Kayaked from Babs’ to Pt. Hammond in a brisk rainfall, Southwest wind. Saw 1 otter, 3 seals, 3 pairs Bufflehead ducks, a small grebe with a red head, a Bald Eagle. The tomolo had wrack almost to the crest. Logs up to a foot in diameter floated hither and yon, and the sand cliffs avalanched in small, less than one ton amounts at least three times in my three hour sojourn there. In the evening at our place, you can hear chorus frogs.
07.dec.06 Julie L: 8:00 Cowlitz. A crisp, sunny day, temp about 35F, wind about 10 knots. The water was too rumpled to look for fish. A few gulls, a few widely scattered swimming birds on the water, no flocks or even pairs of birds. On the boat ride to Friday Harbor, saw very few birds on the water but lots of driftwood, mostly under 5 feet long. At 14:00 going back, same. Walking home through Lovering’s shortcut, thousands of tiny birds went “pheep” or “twit,” rummaging around in the red madrone berries or the forest litter. A new crop of mushrooms, including one with a white cap with a yellow center and one of a deep orange. Counted plankton with Fred, Donna, Stan, Bill. The Dec 2 North Bay sample had almost nothing but copepods in it, as compared to more variety of species in samples from warmer months.
07.dec.06 Glen R: 12 – 14:30 roundtrip walk from Farm Bay landing (Mittelstadt’s) to Pt. Hammond. Partly cloudy. Wind out of NE<14 mph. Temps low 40’s. High tide 7.9 at 1 p.m. In front of landing to Otter Point (Little Hammond): 14 Buffleheads, 9 Red-breasted Mergansers, 5 Surf Scoters, 1 Red-tail Hawk, 1 Harbor Seal, 1 River Otter. No birds in Otter Cove (Little Hammond Cove). At Point Hammond 2 Northern Flickers, one hunting in south facing sand bluffs on point-rise. At Point Hammond Annex rock in group 10 feet square: 11 Double-breasted Cormorants, 10 unidentified gulls, 3 Black Turnstones. Lots of driftwood in coves. Most common seaweed washing up is Bull Kelp. Sea Rocket still in bloom. Three eagles in group came hunting by Huntley bluffs towards Severson Bay.
07.dec.07 Julie L: Cold, clear.
07.dec.09 Stan W: Saw a juvenile Bald Eagle in a tree (distinguishable from a Golden Eagle by its yellow beak). At the bird feeder, mostly juncos and Rufous-sided Towhees.
Julie L: Snow in morning, thaw in lowlands but not uplands in afternoon. I walked from Mail Bay to College Camp and noted that there are still kelp bulbs floating in the pocket coves. Their beaches are completely covered with driftwood, with a few scattered pieces of litter such as plastic jugs. The female juniper trees are covered with pungent berries, mostly green but a few deep violet. A small woodpecker flitted in Bill’s trees.
07.dec.15 Julie L: COASST walk to Hammond. Wet, dark day. Winter Wrens on driftwood. Kelp wrack. Mushrooms.
07.dec.20 Glen R: Lonnie’s cabin at 9pm, moonlight coming in, temps low 40’s. Saw a bat fly by overhead a few times. Even on mid-30’s nights lately I’ve been seeing little moths in road headlights.
07.dec.30 Glen R: Pair of Great Horned Owls hanging out in circle in woods lately. Sometimes one of them goes into a ‘laugh’ that goes on for about 10+ seconds, a repeated note over and over. Haven’t heard that one before.
November 2007 (in progress) · 858 days ago by Julie Loyd
07.nov.01Stan W: The buffleheads are back in Mail Bay.
Julie L: 14:00 at Cowlitz. West wind about 10 knots, clear, 45 – 50º. Plankton tows at TNC and Cowlitz yielded a bunch of calenoid copepods, some pretty large. The water was too choppy to see if the tubesnouts? were still at the float, but a few small grebes and other little ducky and gully birds were fishing. Everyone loves this clear, brisk weather!
07.nov.02David L: Saw a blue bird at Deer Harbor, flitting in the bushes.
07.nov.03Julie L: 7:00 – 9:30 COASST walk to Hammond and back. Lots of wrack on the beach, very high tide last night, all the way to the sand cliffs. The sand is very high compared to recent months. At Hammond, a Great Blue Heron, gulls, cormorants, 5 Harlequin Ducks (3 male, 2 female), 3 Red-breasted Mergansers. Eight otters ran up the beach to the driftwood in the cove between Little Hammond and Hammond. On the road between school and S’s Cove, many russula mushrooms, a little the worse for wear.
07.nov.05 Julie L: 14:00 Took the school kids to Mail Bay to look at cormorants. We saw one with a white breast (a juvenile pelagic?), and two others on the pilings. A flock of crows flew by. After school, Peregrin escorted some of us to Thea’s rocks, where the kids found a pile of fresh dead tubesnouts, some with bite marks on them. There was a discussion about whether they had been killed by a cormorant or an otter. We saw lots of red russula mushrooms under the cormorant trees at the headland. Then, Adrian draped an enormous eelgrass wig on his head.
07.nov.07 Julie L: Went looking for the skeleton of the harbor porpoise I found last month about 50 feet from Pt. Hammond. After the big addition of sand to those beaches, the carcasse vanished and then the bones reappeared on the Cook’s beach about 15 days later. Also on that beach were moonsnail shells, the usual scattered collection of clam shells, and lots of worm casings, translucent blue-gray tubes about 2 mm in diameter and any length less than about 10 cm.
07.nov.08 Julie L: Dozens of twittering birds in the madrone near the Post Office. Tony calls them “bee birds.” Juncos at our house, also twittering madly. Madrone berries must be ripe.
07.nov.13 Julie L: High wind in morning. Pine down at the school, several trees down across the roads. Rain. Mushrooms are gradually changing guard. The russulas are pretty old and rotten, but there are a lot of new very small ones out.
07.nov.14 Julie L: Frost last night.
07.nov.15 Julie L: COASST walk to Hammond via kayak because the tide was too high to negotiate the downed trees on the beach. At Hammond, gulls.
07.nov.26 Julie L: After days of frost, hard rain in the afternoon. As the rain began, we could hear nuthatches towards the West and a very conversational flock of crows in nearby trees. We’ve been hearing owls at night.
Camilla L: At P.O., a flock of starlings.
Stan W: Last night, at a 3.7 tide on Mail Bay beach, we scared off a flock of about 100 cormorants, probably Double-crested. We caught a small shrimp in a tide pool.
October 2007 · 858 days ago by Julie Loyd
07.oct.01: Julie L: Clouds, light rain. 14:00 took the school kids to the rocks at Appel’s Beach. No birds or mammals. Blackberries are still edible at Zeo’s.
Peter A: Photo from plankton count for Oct 1, Cowlitz Bay.
07.oct.02: Julie L: 18:00, dramatic light, sea slightly choppy, air slightly chilly. Plankton tow at TNC and Cowlitz. Critters seem less numerous but larger than in Sept. David saw herring earlier today, and says that recently, he’s been noticing an oily sheen when they feed. Is it herring poop?
07.oct.03: Glen R: 13:45 to 16:30, Farm Bay Landing to Point Hammond round trip walk. Temp approx 52 degrees, wind @ 10 mph. Overcast, occasional rain showers. Gale force winds last Sat night into Sunday (Sept 29 – 30). Rain off and on, sometimes continuous today, predicted through weekend. High tide about early afternoon. Before Otter Pt (this is the Otter Point that’s also called Little Hammond) saw nine Surf Scoters, two Double-crested Cormorants, two Pelagic Cormorants, one Western Grebe, one smaller grebe, 30 Heermann’s Gulls, 40 other gulls, two Common Loons.
At Otter Point one male Harlequin Duck 10 feet from shore. In Otter Cove two Harbor Seals, one River Otter came by. Three other mergansers in Otter Bay. About 90 cormorants on Bare Rock (saw various ones fly off and come by me). One heron at Point Hammond, two Kingfishers in both Otter Cove and Farm Bay. On return walk saw pair of Yellow-billed Loons out from Glacial Comp rock in Farm Bay.
07.oct.04: Julie L: 16:00 Walked from G’s to B’s beach in brilliant sunlight. The sand, which had washed away recently leaving a step, is now back. The whole beach seems to be freshly carpeted with sand. The high tide mark is right up to the vegetation in places. All the way to the Chev’s, there were scattered dead trees and bushes at the border between forest and sand.
I met Marty and Mitch C at their point. One of them said that the herring left abruptly years ago, and there haven’t been any since. He remembered that when he was a kid, they could jig for herring any time they wanted a meal. I said that I’d heard that around 1965, the Blue Pacific fished in Cowlitz repeatedly until all the fish were gone. “Yeah,” he said, “I fish on that boat. We go up to Alaska for the herring.” He said that the old skipper is still living in La Conner or Mt Vernon, and that his son is now skipper.
Pileated Woodpecker on the snag by the front entryway at L’s.
07.oct.05:Barry M: At the Farm Beach, pair of Yellow-billed Loons.
07.oct.05Julie L: Sunny, but the wet of the recent rains is very evident. Around home, the last of the dragonflies flit around in the clearing. Those little black spiders are darting around, the cats are hunting grasshoppers/cicadas, and you can hear single frogs here and there. Lots of twigs have spiderwebs on them. The maple leaves are yellow and falling, the alders are still green, the squashes in the garden are huge. No frost yet.
07.oct.07Julie L: 16:00, brilliant sun and wind after rain. Went to Sandy Point through the A yard, where a flock of 50 Canada Geese were settled. The beach had a thick rind of ulva wrack, bleached tan and black at the top half of the beach, and still moist and green at the lower half. High tide had gone up nearly all the way to the sand cliffs. Lots of yellow crab molts and jingle shell. A flock of about 300 mixed gulls at the tip of the Point.
07.oct.08Julie L: 14:00 went to S’s Cove with the schoolchildren on a shell scavenger hunt; cool, breezy, sunny. There was a lot of sand on the beach, but not as much wrack as on the south side of the island. We found remains of: Moonsnail (Polynices lewisii), whelk, purple varnish clam (nuttalia obscurata), cockle (clivocardium nutallia?), Pacific oyster (with purple in the depths of the ridges), Ice-age scallops from the cliffs at Hammond, Dungeness crab molts and yellow crab molts, chiton (Katharina tunicata?), green abalone, mussel (Mytilus edulis), barnacle, limpet, various clams, some with holes drilled in them near their hinges, worm shells, bird bones and feathers, and a buffalo sculpin skull. A thin-shelled clam shaped like a razor clam but smaller might be a Fan-shaped Horse Mussel (Modiolus rectus), or a Jackknife Clam, but don’t quote me. Missing were scallops and periwinkles, though we have seen live periwinkles on the C’s rocks.
17:00 Uncovered a fat 1 1/2” green chorus frog when I moved a rotten log. Later found a wandering garter snake coiled up beneath a log.
20:00 Helped Isa move hay indoors in anticipation of the rain predicted tomorrow and found a coiled garter snake in her hay. Also a male goat.
07.oct.19Julie L: 15:00 At Deer Harbor Dock there was a tight school of about 3,000 3” fish that were probably juvenile herring, floating near the surface between the float and the dock. A fisherman noticed them and said he was happy they were back. They were gone for many years. He used to catch herring as salmon bait. In the winter months for three successive years in the late ’80’s, he used to catch kings, about 180 total, using herring as bait. The biggest one was 26 pounds.
16:00 At Cowlitz, it was slightly breezy, with rippled but perfectly clear water. We saw no fish around the dock.
07.oct.20Julie L: 17:00 Sunny in the morning, rain in the afternoon. The leaves have fallen entirely off of some maples, but most still have about half. Our clearing is covered with fresh new grass. A single frog is croaking. Some of the rounds of wood we haven’t yet split and stack are fuzzed with mold.
07.oct.21Julie L: 12:00 Cowlitz: cloudy, light wind, murky water. A school of 2” – 6” tubesnouts (?) surrounds the float.
07.oct.22Julie L: 13:00 Walk to Sandy Point with school children and Tony S; cloudy, brisk wind, murky water. A Bald Eagle in a Doug-fir top just before the Point. Someone had left the remains of four mouflon, including heads and guts at the Point, but we didn’t see any scavenging birds except the eagle there. Yet.
Lots of fresh wrack; kelp, various other algae, crab molts, purple varnish clam shells, other clam shells, and the green jingle shell mussel. At the Point, a flock of about 100 Heermann’s gulls, mixed in with other gulls, both juvenile and adults. The Heermann’s were relatively fearless. While the other gulls ended up swimming in the water when we approached, the Heermann’s eventually flew back and settled about 10 – 20 feet away from us, facing into the wind and looking sincere.
Peregrin B found a Rufous-sided Towhee that died against the school’s window. We also collected a few mushrooms growing around the school, including one with a stringy stipe and a lurid yellow cap with grey tinges. The spore print was whitish. Mushrooms are everywhere.
Josie S brought a sexton beetle that she’d found covered with 40 or 50 small red mites. In Haggards’ Insects of the Pacific Northwest, they say that mites can be parasitic, but that some carrion beetles have a symbiotic relationship with their mites, carrying them to the carcasses where the mites eat fly maggots which might compete with the beetles’ larvae.
Pam M saw another sexton beetle at her house. She kept it in a jar for a few days, and on the second day it was suddenly covered with red mites.
Glen R at Cowlitz Dock: 14:00 temp high 50’s wind <8 mph, overcast, been raining lately. Some few hundred fish by float 6 – 8” long, thin tubesnouts? sand lance? Tide coming in. Two pairs Horned Grebes came by, three cormorants on boat, one kingfisher. – Glen R
07.oct.23Julie L: 11:00 Walk to Pt. Hammond; sunny, no breeze, very clear water. At Point, a chirping Bald Eagle, a Great Blue Heron, a flock of 8 shorebirds, a flock of 7 ducks, and scattered gulls. Kingfishers. The sand level is very high compared to recent weeks. Fallen trees that I used to duck under had no room underneath and I climbed over instead. From the rocks at Hammond over to the deep side, you could see all sizes of perch, from 3” to about 12”. Also, purple sea stars, sun stars, a sand dab, and a Dungeness crab.
Josie S: There’s a dead female White-winged Scoter (_not_ a Scaup as I previously wrote) near Cowlitz dock. These migratory birds dive after shellfish.
07.oct.24Glen R: 10-24-07: 15:50 to 18:10 round trip walk Farm Bay to Point Hammond. 60 degrees (Friday Harbor 67º at 3 pm). Clear. Wind <2 mph. Rain coming tomorrow. Water glassy. High tide at 16:30. Full moon in 2 days. Many termites flying. Been seeing flocks of 30-150 Snow Geese flying over island from Northwest to Southeast the last few weeks, from various island spots, and even at night.
Barry reports hearing loons, Western Grebes, Common Murres at night at from Farm. Nine Canada Geese hanging out in orchard last two months. Chestnut-backed Chickadees around the house there last month.
On walk, out from Oyster Rocks, nine Red-Breasted Mergansers, two pair of Buffleheads, one pair Goldeneye, five Surf Scoters. A pair of Harlequins grooming on rocks at Otter Point. Out further 7+ Horned Grebes. Two cormorants. A few unidentified gulls.
At Point Hammond heard Bald Eagles from Huntley Point. At Hammond’s annex rock saw ten gulls, one Great Blue Heron, two Black Turnstone, three River Otters all hanging out within 30 feet of each other. Three Harbor Seals visible from Point Hammond. Through binoculars saw 50 birds on west finger ridge Bare Rock, saw various groups fly off, Double Crested Cormorants. At dusk saw 60+ crows heading into Huntley Bay cliffs. On way back saw one kingfisher by Glacial Comp Rock.
07.oct.25Julie L: First frost, very light.
David L: Mild outflow from Northwest, shifting to North. 17:30 Cowlitz: The first sunny day after a string of cloudy days. Clear, sunny, calm in bay, clear water. A zooplankton bloom on the surface attracted fish which attracted tern-like birds. There was a ball of them about 3/4 of the way to Point Disney, and others scattered along the drift cell line that defines the Cowlitz embayment. Presumably, the plankton would be washed towards the dock and remain captured in Cowlitz.
19:00At L’s, a bird flew overhead mobbed by a small flock of crows. It had a unique, resonant triple hoot, somewhere in the high tenor or alto range. Small russula mushrooms have sprouted here and there. Our maples have lost all their leaves in the last few days but their pods remain.
07.oct.26Julie L: Second frost, heavier than yesterday but still light.
17:30 Cowlitz, 2” – 6” tubesnouts? scattered everywhere. A small flock of mixed gulls and other birds were fishing.
22:00; moonlight, water clear at Friday Harbor dock, lots of shrimp darting around at the water’s surface. At Cowlitz later on, we looked for shrimp but saw none.
07.oct.27Julie L: At Lopez Citizen Science meeting, Russel Barsh talked about what we know and want to know about local juvenile salmon, Anne Beaudreau talked about Lingcod and gastric lavage, and I talked about our developing beach seine technique. A fisherman asked if we’d ever caught shad. He said that they are in southern waters and the Columbia River but last year a reef fisherman on Lopez caught a few. This year, that same fisherman caught I think it was three tons.
We briefly discussed the return of fish in larger numbers to our waters. In Cowlitz, is it due to our replacing creosote pilings with steel? Elsewhere, is it due to less fishing pressure? Anne said that Lingcod are larger in the reserves near Friday Harbor Labs and that they catch larger rock cod in the reserves. Russel said that on the East Coast, fishermen showed him that the stomachs of the Atlantic cod they were catching were empty, and shortly afterwards the cod fishery crashed completely. He thinks this has something to do with the response to discovering that the cod were getting fished out. They switched to fishing for less desirable species, which happened to be fish that the cod eat.
07.oct.29David L: Massive school of tubesnouts (?) under dock/float, 12:30 – 13:00. This is an unusually abundant year, though there has always been a school of them at the dock.
Glen R at Cowlitz:13:00Temp 55º, wind <2 mph, overcast, Four (two pair) Red-necked Grebes, 12 horned Grebes. 5,000 – possibly 15,000 5 – 7” tubesnouts? around float, grebes coming after them. Glen has video.
Julie L: 14:00 took schoolkids to Cowlitz float, clear, clear water, 55ºish, no wind, water rippled. Tubesnouts? unbelievably thick at float; we debated whether there were thousands or billions (I vote for thousands). When we arrived, they were at the surface, but dropped down to about 3’ below. Gulls, things that might have been terns, and a pair of smallish Grebes were fishing. Attached to the float, we saw large barnacles, mussels, a big kelp crab, and lots of frilled anemones.
07.oct.30Julie L: 17:00 at my house, raking leaves, honeysweet air, cold sunlight, nuthatches nikniknikniknik-ing in the woods. I remember the nuthatch song being common all summer long, but didn’t hear them much this summer. But now, here they are. I saw a woolybear caterpillar (Pyrrharctiia isabella) in the garden with a black front third and orange band that went all the way to its hind end. Woolybears overwinter and hatch into a rather dull looking golden brown moth with small black spots.
07.oct.31Julie L: Foggy morning. Nuthatches calling from all sides in center of island. Found in a small water-filled bowl left in a ditch near the woodshed: Two grasshopper/katydids, 11 carnivorous ground beetles (Carabidae sp), 1 sexton beetle (Nicrophorus defodiens), 3 cylindrical millipedes (not the flattened kind), 1 large brown/yellow spider (Araneus diadematus; Insects of the Pacific Northwest actually had a picture of what looks like this very spider! It’s an orb weaver that was introduced from Europe), 3 small black beetles, 7 earwigs (the European earwig, Forficula auricularia), 1 wasp (possibly Siricidae sp), 23 woodlice.
Barry M at Cowlitz: Light breeze. Three dozen Crested Cormorants, 8 Horned Grebes, several (4+) gulls, maybe Bonaparte’s, all right off North dock and float, too much ripple to see bait, but large enough to be enticing. Probably needlefish? school seen Monday. Overcast, fog rising on Boundary Channel. Oops! Missed a pair of Red Throated Grebes. Also, two Common Loons, a lot of Double Crested Cormorants, the three join seven on Jeff Heater’s boat for a guano relief. One Coast Guard med. Cutter at Sandy Point. Some Glaucous Gulls, four (two pair) adult Bald Eagles working “pickoff” patrol further out on South towards Disney, one Great Blue Heron working lookout at standard spot in top of of madrone at elbow crook of South Bay where dock beach meets Disney Ridge beach, two Harbor Seals.
Glen R at Cowlitz 16:30:High tide, overcast, wind <6 mph, temp approx 50º. Approx eight Horned Grebes, four Red-necked Grebes, 12 Cormorants, few other birds in distance.
Julie L at Cowlitz 18:00: Tubesnouts? very thick around dock, all hanging in water facing towards incoming water from Disney. Very few birds, including a pair of smallish grebes, fishing.
September 2007 · 858 days ago by Julie Loyd
Sept 1Laurie G: heard whales go around Sandy Point past her beach at night.
Plankton tows happened at five beaches around the island, and some were counted. Here are the results from North Beach (Idiot savants among you will note that everything is divisible by eight. That’s because we divided the sample three times, thus counting only 1/23 of the amount of critters that were in the undivided sample. I then multiplied by eight to get the final figures):
Calenoid Copepods: 3,472Copepods fill the insect niche in plankton.
Harpactecoid: 1,704A copepod.
Poecilostomatoids: 14,536A copepod.
Copepod nauplius: 3,496A nauplius is the larval form, before the final adult form.
Barnacle nauplius: 136Barnacles have five nauplius forms, or instars.
Barnacle cyprid: 800Barnacle cyprids don’t eat, but look for a place to settle.
Zooea: 16Larval crabs
Cladoceran: 3,008Predators
Gammarid amphipod: 48
Isopod: 8
Spionid: 56
Polychaete: 72
Veliger: 136Teeny weeny snails.
Bivalve larva: 632Eensy weensy clams and scallops.
Single eggs: 520
Egg mass: 16Sometimes you see copepods carrying them around. Aww.
Larvacean: 2,384
Jellyfish: 16
Chaetognath: 24A predatory worm.
Trochophore: 96
Ostracod: 32
Terrestrial insect skeleton: 8
06.sep.02David L: 7:30 am President Channel 2 miles North of Jones saw an Elephant Seal. One mile North of Jones saw a weird mammal – size of small seal but not harbor seal. Otter? Sea otter? Tail looked wrong as it rose half out of water to dive. Other seal variety. Small and slender, agile.
07.sep.03Glen R: Saw ten murres a mile offshore of North Beach, looking through John R’s telescope.
07.sep.04Glen R: Hazy, no wind. Temps upper 60’s, foggy in morning. At 10:30 am Barry Martin said he saw a school of several jumping fish by the buoys in front of the Farm Beach, about 6 -10 pounds each. He saw an elephant seal about 11:30 this morning, about a mile off in the middle of a rapid flood tide. He watched it for about three hours, real far out, came way out of the water, snout bobbed up and down, getting lower in the water with each bob, then disappeared for 15 minutes or so, then came back up. Head as big as a buoy. (others saw it around Sandy Point). Barry saw a salmon at Van B’s buoy, and Bill C saw salmon at his buoy. There must be a run of salmon going through right now.
At 14:00, Glen boated from the Farm Bay landing round trip to Pt. Hammond. He saw 100+ Heermans Gulls on beach and on Mike C’s raft. Also 30 unidentified gulls. Saw 2 kingfishers by Otter Point. 3 Double-crested Cormorants. 3 Harbor Seals. Very few signs of forage fish. High tide 3pm. At 3 pm saw small school of 3-4 salmon 6-10 pounds on surface about 50 yards offshore in front of landing. Also saw approx 6 Dalls porpoises in point rip by Point Doughty.
07.sep.05Chris W: This time of year, there used to be lots of grebes and oldsquaw off of Sandy Point.
Hallie A: 13:00, A’s Beach, calm, sunny, 65º, rising tide. On the water, a mixed flock of sea gulls: ca. 30 Glaucous-Winged, of which half are young ca. 35 Heerman’s, mostly young though some adults Six Cormorants of which two appear smaller (Pelagics?), all low in the water. ca. 15 black and white birds – Murres? Further out, a small tight raft of 25 or so little birds that appear to be black all over, with visible necks – ?? Several grey-winged, black tipped gulls, smaller: Thayer’s? One seal, one Harbor Porpoise.
18:00 Julie L: At TNC beach, lots of dried up bullhead heads, ranging from 2 inches to 6 inches across. Found two feathers of about 12” long, with a white quill, grey at the bottom, and black all the way to the top where two white spots are about an inch below the tip. A flock of about 20 Canada Geese and a separate flock of about 100 gulls plus about 10 little white sandpiper shorebird thing alternated between sitting on shore and swimming out by the mooring buoys.
07.sep.06 Julie L: Thomas A showed me the dead trees along the north side of Sandy Point. There was also a mummified Red-Tailed Hawk in a bush and a fallen Bald Eagle nest.
Stan W: Don H said that 5 – 6“ fish were jumping off their rocks. Also lots of gulls.
07.sep.07Julie L: Today KWIAHT sponsored Bob Gara, an enymologist, to visit and give a workshop on insects. He gave a lecture in the morning and led a field trip to the A’ in the afternoon. We found water striders, dragonfly nymphs, codling moths, etc.
Tent caterpillar behavior is cool! Three types hatch out–one is hyperactive and runs around to the tips of things and builds messy nests. The second are conservatives, who follow the trails of the explorers and build properly traditional tents. The third are the sacrificial idiots, who wander around and thrash their heads, thus luring predators and parasites away from the productive caterpillars.
Add Oregon-grape berries to color apple jelly nicely.
Stan W: We have this crazy band of band-tailed pigeons. They come in to the feeder 20 at a time. They’ve been eating us out of house and home! They land on each other. Day before yesterday, I heard the tremendous flutter they make when they flee. A hawk struck and missed and went up into a tree looking embarrassed. It looks like an accipiter, it’s brown with a dark buff breast with stripes going vertically. A Northern Harrier? Then I checked Birding in the San Juans. It’s a goshawk, it hangs around Band-tailed Pigeon roosts. The bird I saw was an immature Goshawk.
Hallie A: Yesterday we found an adult otter, skull broken into yesterday, the rest was still intact, adult teeth. It’s fairly fresh dead. Not obviously injured. It’s down by Cowlitz dock along the beach towards the west side, just under Skip Lauridsen’s house. It would be a beautiful skull. Last week another one washed up on the beach in much worse condition, but it was probably a juvenile because it had fewer teeth than the other one. We found this one because of a turkey vulture, the otter was pretty far gone.
We haven’t seen many otters this year at our place. We usually have at least one family.
Thomas A: Carla L saw a minke whale off of Point Hammond last week.
David L: Small fish on the surface in the usual spots at Cowlitz. A few of the big, thick reddish jellyfish Lion’s Mane Jellies after a near absence through this rainless summer. Now gone.
Hallie A: 13:30, sunny, warm (60’s), no wind, calm, mid-tide. Kelp wrack. Just south of the farm at the North end of College Camp in the shallow water at the edge, small adult or nearly full grown seal’s body, still intact, being rolled by the waves. No injury visible. Some of the summer residents at that end are known to take pot shots at birds (crows). Don’t know if they bring anything bigger than a shotgun to the island.
Laurie G:18:30 – 19:30 at Cowlitz: Thousands of flashing fish – small, maybe three inches. A few feet below the surface, few surfacing to feed along the surface. Located in the moorage to the west of the dock.
07.sep.10Phil Green saw a coot swim over from Shaw to Yellow. Tony saw it on Yellow.
Julie L: 14:00 Cowlitz with the schoolkids. Everything still; water, wildlife, everything. Oh, and Ryan collecting seaweed. A kingfisher did chatter briefly but mostly it was dead calm.
Jannik R: He showed us a marbled murrelet that had been netted. It looks like a very small spotted penguin. It was molting, with little pinfeathers showing on the wing.
Laurie G: 22:00 ish Heard whales come around Sandy Point and past her beach.
David L: 22:00 Severson’s Cove, clear night, dark. He heard (but it was too dark to see) whales go between Skipjack and shore. There was a constant sound of breathing with occasional short pauses, they were going from East to West, there were a lot of them, and there were occasional slaps.
07.sep.11Hallie A: 16:00, clear, calm, ca 70º, water flat, current going South, tide high. A’s Beach. Sometimes a kingfisher comes at dawn or at dusk to fish from a pole on their beach, if the tide is high enough. Today it was there around 4 p.m. She saw it dive, submerge completely, rise to surface flapping, sink again, and pass out of sight behind a tree. She heard a chittering, but saw no sign of it. Went down to water’s edge, saw some feathers floating but no kingfisher, alive or dead ir in between. At 7 p.m. a kingfisher was back on the pole.
Pam M, Bill C: Sunset, Fishery Point Beach: Clear, mild, calm. High tide, with a counter-tidal eddy. They saw four inch silvery fishes jumping out of the water. Initially, they saw little circular ripples where small fish were dimpling the water surface. Then they noticed them leaping out of the water six to thirty feet from shore. The display went on for about 40 minutes.
Julie L: Our cat brought in a baby rat which promptly oozed peanut-sized bots. Rats have been walking around the island, grossing people out.
07.sep.13Julie L: High wind last night. G’s beach has a new 12” drop in the sand near the high tide mark. Don H and Linda E walked by and said this Northwest wind did not affect Otter Cove. There, they are seeing schools of fat bodied greenish fish, 2 – 3” which are new, and lots of six inch jumpers. The rocks have had a flock of 2 – 300 gulls, which they haven’t seen in four years. Birds are fishing the ebb tides, going in turn from the smaller birds and then the larger gulls. From three to six Harbor Porpoises feed at the egg tides. The seals and eagles are gone from that bay.
07.sep.14David L: Lots of fish near the dock. Some kind of major plankton hatch, probably copepods.
Julie L: 14:00, sunny and cool. Took the school kids to C’s Beach, where a school of 5” fish clustered at First Point, possibly herring, though they weren’t flashing silver. We saw nucella on the barnacles, shore flies, and a fat bumblebee who wandered around on our hands.
07.sep.15Julie L: Plankton tow at Cowlitz in the evening, calm, water murky with what turned out to be absolute zillions of zooplankton, much appreciated by schools of small fish.
07.sep.16Hallie A: 17:15, overcast, cool, rain, no wind, misty, water calm, clear. High tide, no wrack. A Beach: Five otters feeding together near shore. Nearly every dive resulted in fish larger than 6” in length. Some held in one or both paws as first bite or bites made, noses pointing towards sky. Feeding period lasted ca. 20 minutes as group moved slowly south.
One young Glaucous-winged Gull circled and left; otherwise no birds visible.
Note: These are nearly the first otters she’s seen in our area all summer – she did see one swimming by in August once or twice only.
Julie L: COASST walk to Hammond. Indian Paintbrush still in bloom, everything else wilted. Stinky remains of a baby seal at the Point.
07.sep.19Julie L: 18:00, Between TNC and Sandy Point Beach; clouds, light wind, 60º’s. Water a bit murky, rippled, rising tide, shallow a long way out. Two cormorants on moorage buoys. 25 – 30 Canada Geese swam by towards Sandy Point, ignoring the dog. Flock of over 50 gulls in front of TNC.
07.sep.20Julie L: 18:40, Between TNC and Sandy Point Beach; clouds, light wind, 60º’s, recent rain. Water clear, rippled, rising tide. Lots of fresh ulva and old eelgrass wrack. Two cormorants on moorage buoys. Flock of over 50 gulls in front of L’s on rapidly vanishing sand berm. Lots of shore flies, one wasp. 19:05: Cormorants fly away. Dramatic sunset, wind died.
07.sep.21Julie L: 17:00, Rain, dark day. At our driveway, a Rough-Skinned Newt was crossing the road. We met Brett Mc on the road, who said that he saw one five years ago on the Sawmill Corner shortcut, and that at that time, Duskin said their pond was full of them. The Audubon guide says they can be seen walking around on wet days in humid forests in the Northwest, including in mountains.
07.sep.22Julie L: Camilla and I went up to Disney, 13:00 – 18:00. It was a cool, sunny day with a magnificent cloud over Turtleback. Below us, some fishermen sat in an open boat. David, who talked to them kindly, said they’d caught and released a small orange rockfish (a Puget Sound Rockfish??), which died, and that he told them we’re trying to restore bottomfish by reducing fishing pressure on them. They left. There was a raptor claw in the moss. We saw yellow-winged cicadas and some kind of lbj bird, but neither swallows nor dragonflies. Ants crawled enthusiastically over us. Below, a pair of floating birds whistled on the water near the kelp, but those were the only ones we saw.
Has the kelp in that area moved around? I don’t know. Maybe we’ll map it.
07.sep.2407.sep.24Julie L: The school kids went to punch holes in kelp to see how the blades grow. The bulbs we pulled up were colonized by ulva or some other green sheet alga. Most of the blades were pretty raggedy, and many had spore patches on them. The carcass below Skip’s house is a seal, not an otter, see flippers in photo at right.
07.sep.26Julie L: At Zeo’s: Apples, blackberries, horse chestnuts. No birds or mammals seen at beach around 16:00.
David L at Cowlitz: Small fish on surface to Sandy Point and all the way across President’s Channel. Not sampled. Observable fish: “perch,” “herring (supple, distinct flash, not surface, approx 5 inches) – these are the same but bigger from one month ago – and 1 foot water one afternoon a school of two dozen 9: fish that looked like salmon at ramp.
Also in last three days, some throng of forage fish.
Thick morning and afternoon film on water, bubbly in places, particularly in the beach zone and fragmented. Continued “fish poo” – David L
07.sep.28Don H: There have been a lot of gulls near Otter Cove (north of Mail Bay). At the ebb tide, the gulls check it out, and Harbor Porpoises come in close. The seals and otters, however, haven’t been around the way they usually are.
07.sep.28Julie L: 17:30 at Cowlitz, breezy. A group
collected to practice seining. We caught lots of herring, between 70 and 100 mm long.
07.sep.29Julie L: Windy day. Lingcod workshop at L’s with Anne Beaudreau, and Salmon Identification workshop with Larry Moulton. Beach seine at Cowlitz in the late afternoon, at which we caught about 1,000 herring and shiner perch.
07.sep.30 Julie L: High wind at night, light rain. COASST walk to Hammond: thick wrack of green, brown, and red algae, greater variety of birds than usual (but I can’t ID them). A family of otters in C’s second cove, two seals in the water there. A very stinky harbor porpoise carcass on the sand close to Hammond. When I went back the next day it was gone. The sand has slumped off the cliffs significantly in spots, and the beach is sandier than usual.
Duskin D: Saw a big bald green caterpillar with blue markings (a tomato hornworm?) near pondweed today, also saw one last year this time, never before. Also in Mike and Carla’s yard at the quarry, saw vast amounts of black diamond-shaped insects that look like torpedos that neither Duskin nor Patrick recognized (possibly psocids?). Also, Ds had two turtles, a big one and a small one, and after four years, one of them reappeared. The crawdads and bullfrogs, however, seem to be fewer. The apple tree in the warmest spot had good apples, though many other trees on W seem to have had a bad year.
August 2007 · 858 days ago by Julie Loyd
07.aug.01Field Notes from Plankton Tow, Brett Mc and Jill S: 14:50-55, TNC from red buoy (no satellite connection) to 48.4.702, 123.03.179 (just beyond white buoy): Calm, hot day. Hard to row – had to place net right behind boat to get 1/3 out of the water (2 feet behind). Dolphin! Cool. (Pacific White-sided?).
15:26pm, Dock,—. 15:31pm 48.41.091, 123.02.326. The rowboat tow: There is a lot of drag on the boat – it is very slow. Should we tow more on distance than time?
06.aug.03David L at Cowlitz 13:30: Three “chum” (probably not, may be chinook) smolt. Occasional leapers off Sandy Point at least 1 mile.
06.aug.04David L: 6:00 am, Cowlitz: Plenty of very small fish furring on surface in partical schools, even one mile off. No sample.
13:30 One leaper mid-President’s Channel.
16:20 Apparent salmon smolt two feet below surface next to dock – dozens – nearly mixed with “stickleback” on surface. Sampled crab larvae and apparent exoskeletons.
Kathy C: At about 20:30 at the Seltzers, two adult and two baby otters were gathered on a log to eat a fish. Then an eagle swooped down and stole the fish.
07.aug.07Glen R: 14:00, Cowlitz Dock. About low tide, wind 8 mph, temp about 78+, sunny, clear. Still barn swallows at dock. Saw about 15 – 18 Lion’s Mane Jellies 6 – 15” diameter from dock. Bryan L said Smith’s (next to W’s) never saw so many wash up on beach. Schools of several thousand herring at dock, being chased by juvenile seal. Also unidentified 1” fish, small schools of 75 – 150, approx six schools, wide bodied gray green. Too many ripples to get good look.
07.aug.08 Julie L: 12:00 Cowlitz Dock, sunny with scattered clouds, about 75º, light breeze. Flock of about 100 gulls on water South of dock, maybe 1/4 mile away, flying around and calling. We used to call these “herring balls” but once David scooped up some fish from where gulls were gathered and they were juvenile sand lance. So, now I just say that it is a group of calling gulls. Fish pocking the surface between the dock and Disney. Two kingfishers flying around dock, occasionally looking as though they’d land on the dock railing but then not. Maybe 5 barn swallows in the air at a time, chirping from under the dock. Small flock of 30ish swimming pigeon guillemots at Disney. 1 crow on the rock at L’s. No seals.
07.aug.09 Bob W: The bay used to have so many herring that when you looked over the side of the boat it was like a mirror. Diving ducks would go down and drive the herring up, and there’d be a thousand gulls screaming and diving at the herring as well. Blackfish (orcas) used to come in and cavort around in there.
Tillie S 17 – 20:00: Walked beach from Frances’ Cove to TNC trailhead. Spent a long time examining sandpipers through binoculars below Marshall’s, right by the TNC property line. Western Sandpipers (several, total of >10 for the whole stretch) and at least two Spotted Sandpipers. The Spotteds have a totally different gait – bob, bob, bobbing. Tony sees them out on Disney, associates them with rockier shores than the Western Sandpiper.
Lots of gulls: Bonaparte’s and Mew gulls by the TNC/Marshall line, closer to the otter trail (the little blip in the Cowlitz shoreline), lots of California Gulls. Mom saw four Heerman’s same day, more towards Sandy Point. She’s seen Heerman’s several times this year. Also thinks she saw an immature Glaucous-winged. Mews mixed some with California Gulls.
Tide book says should have been a flood tide, but observation contradicts – looked high around 17:00 then ebbing, so I walked some on new wet sand.
Arrived W August 1, 2007, since then have seen these butterflies: Lorquin’s Admiral, Western Tiger Swallowtail, Cabbage White, Pine White (only on beach). Also a Comma, probably a Satyr Angelwing but I’m not sure.
07.aug.10 Julie L: Water Quality workshop with Russel Barsh at L’s. We found cadmium and chlorides in every sample from around the island, and also found that the Brita charcoal filters reduces their concentration. See http://thewhelk.org/news for a verrrrrry lengthy report.
07.aug.11 Tillie S: 8:00 A.M. (Low tide at 11:11) Waking up on the deck of “Casa del Scott,” very tip of Sandy Point, overlooking a selection of gulls, murres, and others.
Total gulls: 300-400 (I did some counting)
Heerman’s Gull (at least 40. I didn’t recognize young Heerman’s; just counted adults.)
Gllaucous-winged Gull
Common Murre (lots)
Rhinocerous Auklet (lots)
Red-necked phalarope? (10-20?)
Brown Creeper
Robin
Chicken
Barn Swallow
California Gull (see below)
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Red-breasted nuthatch
Great Blue Heron
Cormorant (I think pelagic)
A young Loon – Common or Pacific
Common Loon (2 adults)
Canada Goose (44)
Starling (100??)
The “California Gull” I’m not absolutely positive about. Black wing tips, yellowish feet (there were lots of them, and I saw no pink feet on a gull with black wing tips). Red gape. The bill: Yellow, big, red spot. However, I couldn’t see any dark with the red spot, like I see in the book. Whatever it is, it is the most abundant gull here this morning.
Saw no Mew Gulls.
All of the above observed just on the tip of Sandy Point, A property. Tide low and ebbing. Gulls feeding, sleeping and preening on sea lettuce rocks and sand flat.
07.aug.11 Tillie S: 15:40, Huntley’s Beach, incoming tide, high at 19:04.
Double-crested Cormorant (1)
Sandpipers (Western, I think, 3)
Kingfisher (2)
Barn Swallow (2)
A great many seabirds out near Skipjack – Murres, Rhinocerous Auklets, Gulls, etc. Murres vocal.
07.aug.12 Tillie S: 15:00 North side of Disney Point, near the tip, flock of about 100 Red-necked Phalaropes. (photo from http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/Infocenter/i2230id.html)
Julie L at Cowlitz 18:00: High tide 20:09, sunny and flat calm at Cowlitz. Beach seine with Tina W-E. Caught juvenile “chinook”, pinks, and herrings by the bucketful, near the big rock towards Disney. The herring were about 100 cm and the salmon slightly larger. Later, DNA testing showed that most of the “chinook” were some other kind of salmon.
07.aug.14Glen R: Cowlitz, 18:45. Water mirror glassy, clear near high tide 62º. About 600 dark gull-like birds by Mouatt Reef, floating. Neither Barry nor I could identify them. Long pointed wings, not diving, only dipping on surface. Twenty seals in a group by furthest boats to West, heading towards Sandy Point. Dave says possible Phalarope, some herring near
Julie L: Cowlitz,19:30. Clear, high tide at 20:30. Seal pup cruising near rock where we caught 100’s of herring and tens of pinks yesterday in the seine net. Seven Crows on beach, one bird swimming by mooring buoy, no others visible. Sounds of planes and distant motorboats, a sweet evening.
Tillie S: 100-150 Heerman’s Gulls on North Beach, hanging out as a flock in front of Harris’. Tide low. Other gulls in the bay (not in flocks) included Mew, Glaucous-winged, and probably California Gulls (drab yellowish legs, black wing tips, bill with spot on it). Some of the Heerman’s seemed to be resting; others stretched their wings up sometimes. Two blue herons to the Southwest.
Tony saw a pair of loons at TNC trailhead this morning; Chris and I saw a solitary one this afternoon (6:30 or 7). Chris hit a rock into the water and what must have been a school of little fish made a slew of sympathetic splashes.
SLUGS: More black slugs this year. Other years long ago I never used to see them – just banana slugs. This year between house and tent hard to avoid stepping on a black slug. In July, saw a garter snake with one in its mouth, but after writhing around the snake failed to swallow it (or got disgusted by the slime) and eventually the snake departed, while slug remained.
07.aug.15 Julie L: Noon. Sunny, water choppy. Went to Hammond for COASST. Nootka roses are developing their hips. Yarrow in bloom. Cat’s Ear at the Point (also blooming like crazy in every meadow on the island) Saw a kingfisher, few crows, swallows, no eagles or gulls. Fewer jellies than at beginning of month. Waded around at Hammond and scared up some small sculpins and a school of maybe 500 1” fish, but no juvenile salmon at that depth. Perhaps they’ve gone deeper. A three inch shiner perch was floating dead on the surface.
Dan C: About a dozen jacksnipes, or sandpipers, at the clay point near Hammond, which is unusual now for W but not for Anacortes. Whales used to come in between Skipjack and the beach there and clean out the fishing. And where have the grebes gone? They used to call them helldivers.
07.aug.16: Julie L: 17:00 at dock, saw a few Barn Swallows and dragonflies, no other wildlife. It was choppy enough so that I couldn’t see any fish.
07.aug.17: Julie L: Cowlitz, 9:00. A few dragonflies, Barn Swallows, a Crow with a white tail feather (we’ve seen one like that at my house in previous years). Debris line snakes from two rocks on East side of dock through moorings. Faint pressure line at West side of float, inside of which water seems to bulge up.
13:00 Carol S: The whales would come between Skipjack and the beach in August. There used to be a kelp forest out at the end of both C’s First Point and Second Point. Her mother and grandmother used to fish for cod in the kelp there. As I talked with Carol, I could see seals slapping the water towards Skipjack.
Dorothy H: You might get morels around Easter if you spread apple pomace in the garden the previous fall. There were shaggy manes at Scott Gordon’s for about two weeks, of all sizes. The russulas are out right now.
Shelly H: The kelp forest out by C’s Points used to be a nursery for baby seals.
Tillie S: Dock dinghy disappeared night of August 17.
07.aug.19: Camilla L counted 63 lion’s mane jellies stranded on the beach between the Cowlitz Dock and the rock below Skip L’s. She’d meant to go swimming but didn’t because of all the jellies.
Tillie S: Jaegers expected with Terns, though I haven’t seen them. Mike C reports lots of terns over by Point Hammond Farm. Hermit Thrush and Water Pipit expected soon.
Pam M: Brooks R beach. Large flock (100 – 200) of beautiful grey gulls with slate colored wings, black legs, orangey red beaks. Standing near water, about 1/5 of the group in the water. “Heerman’s Gulls.” Much smaller group of light-colored gulls standing next to them. Also a few large mottled white and brown birds mixed in.
A Heerman’s Gull chased a mottled one across the beach-side edge of the group (as if trying to drive it away?). Reaching the outer perimeter of the group, the Heerman’s Gull squatted briefly a couple times, as did a few more of the nearby Heerman’s (as if marking territory?? Signaling something?).
07.aug.20: Julie L: I’ve begun to notice those globe spiderwebs in the conifer forests. Camilla and I found brilliant orange mushrooms that were probably an agarica or lactarius that had been colonized by a fungus to make a lobster mushroom. It’s supposed to be edible. A spore print yielded white.
Tillie S: List of birds I saw and/or heard on W, Summer 2007. These were mostly observed from the beach in Cowlitz Bay, on the Cowlitz Nature Conservancy Preserve, and from commonly traveled roads and trails. I also did Tony’s mail run sometimes – birds observed from the boat I considered “W birds” if they were closer to W than to other land. Most were quite near shore. No great surprises on the list:American Crow
American Goldfinch
American Robin
Bald Eagle
Band-tailed Pigeon
Barn Swallow
Barred Owl
Belted Kingfisher
Bewick’s Wren
Bonaparte’s Gull
Brown Creeper
Brown-headed Cowbird
Bushtit
California Gull
Canada Goose
Cedar Waxwing
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Common Loon
Common Murre
Common Tern
Common Raven
Common Yellowthroat
Cooper’s Hawk
Dark-eyed Junco
Double-crested Cormorant
Downy Woodpecker
European Starling
Glaucous-winged Gull
Great Blue Heron
Great Horned Owl
Hairy Woodpecker
Heerman’s Gull
Hooded Merganser
House Wren
Killdeer
MacGillivray’s Warbler
Mallard
Marbled Murrelet
Mew Gull
Northern Flicker
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Orange-crowned Warbler
Osprey
Pelagic Cormorant
Pied-billed Grebe
Pigeon Guillemot
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Red-necked Phalarope
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-winged Blackbird
Rhinocerous Auklet
Rufous Hummingbird
Rufous-sided Towhee (Spotted Towhee)
Song Sparrow
Spotted Sandpiper
Swainson’s Thrush
Townsend’s Warbler
Turkey Vulture
Violet-green Swallow
Wn Flycatcher (Pacific Slope Flycatcher)
Wn Sandpiper
Wn Screech Owl
White-crowned Sparrow
Wilson’s Warbler
Winter Wren
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Birds Tillie did not identify, but that were reported to her:
Black Oystercatcher (Barry M, Tony) (Tony saw one flying across Cowlitz Bay – unusual. Most years, they nest at Hammond.)
Black-headed Grosbeak (Tony)
Golden-crowned Kinglet (Tony)
House Finch (Tony)
Hutton’s Vireo (Tony)
Peregrin Falcon (Tony)
Pileated Woodpecker (Jennie L, Tony)
Purple Finch (Tony)
Ring-necked duck (Tony, in June)
Sharp-shinned Hawk (Tony)
Solitary Vireo (Tony)
Tree Swallow (Barry says they are nesting in the orchard on Point Hammond Farm.)
Varied Thrush (Tony)
Warbling Vireo (Tony)
Widgeon (Tony, in June)
Wood-duck (Josie)
Should ask Winnie about Stellar’s Jay and Bs about Saw-whet Owl.
Birds not observed on W this summer, as far as I know – absent birds:
Black-capped Chickadee (as expected),
House Sparrow (as expected),
Marsh Wren (Where is it? They are a standard nesting bird, here, in the Nature Conservancy Swamp, but we haven’t found it this year. Maybe it’s just hiding – it’s a bit reclusive???),
Rock Dove (as expected),
Stellar’s Jay (ask Winnie – sometimes she has seen them, other years).
07.aug.21: Julie L: At Glenn’s beach for 2.5 hours in the forenoon. Saw a few gulls, very little wrack, no sea mammals. In the late evening we boated to Disney to collect kelp. The fronds are shredded at the ends, but none were colonized with the round pinkish stuff that we noticed last month near Hammond. The discolorations on the Disney kelp were also brownish, though clearly not kelp. There was a run-over rat on the Sandy Point road at Don B’s driveway.
Camilla L: She used to sit at her desk in school and wish that the maple leaves would turn so it would be closer to her birthday on Oct 7. Now, some of the leaves have already turned despite the plentiful rains.
Hallie A: 15:00 There was a flock of >50 – 60 first year Heerman’s Gulls, I believe, on beach below and slightly North of the the Farm Beach.
07.aug.21Tillie S: Cowlitz, 15:00. I observed a big (7 – 8”) rock crab in shallows south of dock, while I was swimming.
Julie L: Cowlitz, 19:00. Last night it rained. Fog in morning, lovely hazy sunshine in evening. Jellies thick. Fish near Disney. We went Bull Kelp collecting closer to Disney – all the ends are frayed, and they have oval spore patches. About 20 or more Barn Swallows, Kingfisher near Disney, scattered gulls.
07.aug.22: Hallie A: 9:00 A flock of what appears to be 10 – 15 Pelagic Cormorants joining a multi-species feeding frenzy out in Presidents’ Channel. Other species in the group include large (Glaucous-winged) and small (Mew?) gulls, a few Bonaparte’s, Double-crested Cormorants, and small black diving birds that raft; six rafts of from 8 – 25+ each were out there. These looked more like some auklets than common murres to me.
Julie L: I’ve heard from several people that there used to be a kelp forest at the C’s points but no longer. I couldn’t remember any kelp there either but decided to kayak there to see. At 18:00 the tide was very high and the sun brilliant but low in the sky. Java surprised an otter. The otter craned her neck way out of the water to see, and rather than swim away, approached the dog, who was on the rocks. A smaller otter followed behind her. I yelled to the dog to leave that area, which she did. The otter kept surfacing near the rocks, always looking at the dog and radiating curiosity and fearlessness. Java swam around near the kayak, usually further than 15 feet from the otter, which seemed to be barely enough. I paddled straight out from the two rocks, but since it was high tide underwater seaweed wasn’t easy to identify. Straight out from the first point was sand, then a band of sea lettuce, seersucker kelp and iridea. Out deeper, the bottom was sandy with a few clam shells sprinkled around. Even deeper, just at the edge of visibility (maybe 15 or 20 feet?) was eelgrass. Out from the second point, the band of lettuce, kelp, and iridea appeared but no eelgrass. I quartered the area, looking for bull kelp, and ended up paddling to Hammond (where there were two Oystercatchers, a flock of crows, and a couple gulls as well as birds that only Tillie could name). The only kelp I saw were broken off pieces, presumably from Skipjack. There was sargassum near the clay point and at Hammond.
07.aug.24: Camilla L 8:20: On the way to Friday Harbor it was foggy and there was a fog rainbow ahead of the boat. We went through a pod of Harbor Porpoises and one dove right under the boat.
Julie L 13:00: On the way back, we saw a 14” salmon flipping entirely out of the water maybe ten times, in Presidents’ Channel about 1/4 mile off Disney. David stopped the boat but we didn’t see it again.
06.aug.25Tillie S at Cowlitz, 8:00 am Barn swallows dive-bombing crow. An osprey seen & heard in bay on several occasions a couple of weeks ago. Also an osprey has been frequenting the Drums’ pond regularly, predating goldfish there. Same bird? That one’s been around since first week of August, I think.
Lots of sea lettuce on North Beach this week, some harvested for gardens.
06.aug.27David L at Cowlitz: Mooring added – A – Wind South. Also, some swallows (half dozen?) and nest (young) sounds. Crows have occasionally taken over the dock.
Mornings/evenings continued small fish in small groups on surface almost certainly not salmon but in salmon areas (along Disney and out with current bulge). Stickleback?
In Deer Harbor evident probable single salmon travel with them at inside float depth.
Glen R: Cowlitz. Barry, David, Glen in two nets near dock caught hundreds of herring, some pinks, others, herring 2 – 4” . Let go before good identification made.
Julie and David L: Cowlitz, 20:10Tide high. Sea flat, pink sunset, swallows twittering. Fish feeding ripples on surface, both sides of dock. Some skitter on surface, others make petite ripple. One seal in the moorings, a regular this time of day. 15 boats on moorings. Kelp floaters, maybe five. Don’t see jellies or dragonflies.
David L, Cowlitz, Later: Zooplankton still thick, as observed looking at cavitation plate while changing oil. Plus, big “bugs” still. Salmon.
07.aug.29Julie L: Cowlitz, 15:00 Unpleasant glare on water, clear. A group of maybe 20 people gathered with Eric Beamer, Kurt Fresh, Russel Barsh, Madrona Murphy, to get beach seine tips, caught several chinooks, sculpins, and smelt.
Glen R: Cowlitz, 17:30Sunny, upper 70’s, clear, water tranquil. Excellent visibility. After the above group left, tide 2/3 of the way in. Approx. 150 salmon, 4 – 7” south o dock in 4 – 8’ of water, not feeding on surface, 1/2 way to bottom, numbers doubling every half hours last hour. Still Barn Swallows around dock, <10. No nest noises of fledgelings. <5 Crows, around 3 gulls in sight. Also 500 herring 5 – 7”.
07.aug.30: Julie L: 8:00 biking past Frances’ Cove, heard the sound of California Gulls (?). Termites are out.
Donna A: 16:00 At Point Hammond, seals slapping off the point in the rip, gulls flying towards Skipjack.
07.aug.31: Glen R: Cowlitz, 14:15. Light rain, 60º, water still. One cormorant near dock, fledgeling Barn Swallows calling from under dock. Some small fish activity at water surface South of dock. Too much glare to see. Tide fairly low.
David L 17:30 at Steep Point, just outside Deer Harbor, collected a dead Harbor Porpoise, which he sent to the Marine Mammal Stranding Network via Phil on Yellow Island. He wonders if the death is related to the renewed gillnetting in County waters.
Julie L 17:00 to 19:00 COASST walk to Hammond (via kayak). Rain in early afternoon, bright sun by evening. At C’s First Point, a pair of squabbling kingfishers, who were still at it on the return trip. Little schools of little fish, one school of maybe 100 5 inchers that could have been salmon. Neither otters nor seals. GBH at Point, along with five gulls. Not too many jellies anymore. While there is blooming yarrow on the Sandy Point Road, the yarrow along the beach towards Hammond and at the Point has faded.
Donna A: There’s a dead seal pup just below Skip’s.
July 2007 · 858 days ago by Julie Loyd
07.jul.01 Donna A: Plankton Tow Field Notes. Fred and Donna left the dock in the Rufous at 14:35 and returned 17:15. They picked up equipment and Bill C in Mail Bay and did four tows performed for five minutes at 800 rpm. High overcast with occasional sun breaks. Very light to no wind.
First tow: Mail Bay 14:20 Start N 48º 42’ 179” W 123 00 385
End N 48 42 059 W 123 00 451
Towards 3 1/2 minutes, rowing across Mail Bay N to S. Resulted in a gelatinous, fluid, sticky, gooey, brown muck in excess. Three people was a handy number to have: Stan, Winnie, Bill C.
Second tow: Severson’s 15:19Start N 48º 43’ 134” W 123 01 573
End N 48 43 076 W 123 01 856
Seal in the water, five otters (three little ones) running up beach. Bald eagles being chased by two gulls. Five boats fishing, one had a fish on. Large number of gulls in the water, not diving.
Third tow: North Bay 16:00 Start N 48º 42’ 620” W 123 02 770
End N 48 42 494 W 123 02 913
One cormorant on buoy. Negligible current. Several pigeon guillemots.
Thirty gulls on Sandy Point spit. Two cormorants flying NE.
Fourth tow: Dock 16:31Start N48º 41’ 207” W 123º 02’ 270”
End N48 41 040 W 123 02 326
Small fish actually at the surface, no jumpers. Two bald eagles in two trees. Less gunky specimen collected.
Fifth tow: TNC 16:51Start N 48º 41’ 761” W 123º 03’ 018”
End N 48 41 793 W 123 03 265
Wake wash periodically very green. Several pigeon guillemots fishing. Fish at the surface breaking surface but not jumpers. Bubbles 30’ inside A’s moorage.
07.jul.01Glen R at Cowlit: 12 pm noon, low tide, water glassy, mostly sunny, about 70º. Still approx 40 salmon 4 – 6” northwest side of dock, lots of 3 – 7” herring around. Thursday (June 28) thousands of them around.
07.jul.03 Josie S: I saw six blue herons in a group, mid-afternoon. They were stalking the shallows of the incoming tide, below the TNC trail access, Cowlitz Bay.
07.jul.04David L: 9 am. Apparent salmon ripples halfway to Mouatt at least.
07.jul.07Stan W at Cowlitz: 18:00 Wind about 6 – 10 from South. Fish from about 15 yards from tide line to end of dock up to about six inches, although I saw a couple larger about five feet down. The school was about five feet deep – saw lots of flashing.. I could see bucktails on several near surface. No jumpers. Two Glaucous Gulls, one Pigeon Guillemot, two Crows carside near Post Office.
07.jul.08 Julie L 9:00-10:30 at Friday Harbor Labs dock with Dr. Joe Gaydos, who was doing necropsies. The Marine Mammal Stranding Network gets calls about dead animals, or Wolf Hollow gives them ones that have died or been euthanized, and Joe takes samples of various organs and tissues. The purpose is to get a picture of the health of the Salish Sea by looking for parasites, infections, and toxin loads in the seals and porpoises that they analyze. While we were at the dock, pigeons were building nests under the dock and schools of what someone said were gunnels hung in the water. You can see from the photo that seal innards are much redder than farm animals’ because they need to store more oxygen in their hemoglobin for long dives.
07.jul.12Julie L at Cowlitz: 18:30 Record heat yesterday, cooler today. At least two fledgeling Violet-green Swallows in nestbox on dockhouse. David says Purple Martins are nesting at Roche Harbor, but he doesn’t know of any here. Barn Swallows under dock. A brief look around dock area reveals no fish.
07.jul.13, 7-9:30 am Winnie A: There were two barred owl fledglings hanging out at the T making baby owl utterances and sitting. I saw them twice while getting milk from Isa or Rolf. They have not been there this week.
07.jul.13: Sue B: There are a lot of dragonflies at my place, more than I’ve noticed in previous years. They fly around in the afternoon sunlight, eating something carnivorously. (To identify your dragonflies, go to http://www.ups.edu/x6518.xml – jl.)
07.jul.13: Gretchen W: We used to have barn swallows here but now we have violet-greens. At 17:30 there was a small flock of banded pigeons on the bird feeder and a small flock of cowbirds on the ground near the feeder. At 19:00 there were several black-headed grosbeaks, a goldfinch, red-winged blackbirds, a male purple finch (rosy red), a banded pigeon, and cowbirds.
07.jul.14: Glen R at Cowlitz, 11:00 Very low tide, temp appx. 75º, wind <2 mph, sunny, scattered cirrus clouds, water glassy, good visibility. Violet-green fledgelings in second nest from dock. Saw about 15 Pigeon Guillemots this side of Point Disney, flying from nearshore water to dock. Saw about two dozen 3 – 5” salmon scattered at six feet + apart around dock, picking at surface, bugs or whatever might be interesting in about 6 – 10’ of water. Also small school <10 striped perch, about 300 herring West of dock.
Julie L: Ryan D did a beach talk at C’s from 9:30 to noon. Fuller notes are at http://thewhelk.org/news . We looked at seaweed and three kinds of clams. It was chilly in the shade, with scattered clouds overhead and a mist rising from the tide flats. Low tide was 11: 50 ish.
At noon, I went to Hammond and back for the COASST beached bird walk. Sunny with scattered clouds, about 70 degrees, no wind, mist on the flats. It seemed as though more sand has recently been laid on to the beaches. Towards Fishery, about 100 gulls and 20 crows were scavenging along with a bald eagle that was waddling around. 10 – 14 sports fishing boats moved from Fishery towards Skipjack. Two flatfish, about 10”, were fresh dead at the high tide line. There were lots of dragonflies at Hammond, but no swallows, ducks, seals, otters, or gulls. An adult and a juvenile eagle flew by more than once, perhaps several of them.
At the Point, the sea thrift blossoms are done with and quite crispy. Yarrow is blooming, as well as some kind of leggy thing with dandelion-like flowers.
I walked around in the cove, disturbing lots of silver-dollar sized flatfish. Flat red seaweed was growing on lots of the eelgrass there, and sargassum grew around the edges of the eelgrass. At the H’s beach access road, Shawn was moving logs and I waded in to the water to look for sargassum amongst the scattered eelgrass. Sure enough, it was there, along with an occasional plump 6” fish that darted into the eelgrass. The tidal current was really strong going eastwards.
On the walk through the forest, the salal is at all stages from blossoming through green berries to purple berries. Fireweed has been blooming for some time. Yellow dandelion-like plants are blooming.
At 21:18 as I write this, it’s early dusk. Swainson’s thrushes are singing from the woods surrounding our clearing.
07.jul.15 Julie L: David and I did a plankton tow in Cowlitz around 12:30 noon.
17:00 at Cowlitz Cloudy, muggy. Three inch fish jumping by big rock towards Disney, many pocking surface, making bubbles. A big swoop of crud marks the tide change. On the other side of the crud, near the dock, are what I think are herring because they flash but don’t jump. Took a plankton sample.
07.jul.16 Fire Workshop.
David L at Cowlitz: 11:00 Big feed frenzy begins at Disney side of moorings and traveling up current towards Sand Point. Lots of bubbles, lots of surface feeding by herring, small (juvenile salmon size). Stay beneath oily sheen. Water surface sampled, but spilled on way home – bugs for sure. Don’t know if this is previously recorded or even accurate, but kelp seems especially strong along Disney this year.
14:00 At dock. In addition to ample small herring, a school of small juvenile salmon travel overhead (surface) probably chum (distinct black dorsal and tails) One weird fish like herring, greyish from above and RED dorsal and nose – go figure.
14:45 Massive herring feeding like this morning starts again, throughout moorages, SE side of dock. SAMPLED surface in active feeding area A mooring/ SAMPLED inert feeding L mooring (surface). – visible apparent prey.
This feeding banded in currents, amorphous without current at 2:45. Also, small (3×4’) cloud of apparent juvenile sand lance at float 2:30. Hypothesis – juvenile herring, working inshore just outside where the tiny juvenile salmon (±2 – 3”), 1 fathom and shallower, may be competing for same prey.
07.jul.17 Julie L: 6:45 am: Rain, mid 60’s, small wavelets, ebb tide. David and I did plankton tows for all baseline bays plus out near Skipjack (to see whether there is a different number of plankton outside the embayments – and yes, there is a lower concentration). At that time of day, there were a few baby seals and adults, and most of the bays had some kind of juvenile fish. Pigeon Guillemots were concentrated at Disney but appeared, usually in pairs, elsewhere. Glaucous-winged Gulls were concentrated at Sandy Point but appeared singly elsewhere.
Later in the day, David said that Cowlitz was crowded with juvenile herring and, above them, juvenile salmon feeding. He dipped a jar into the water where the fish were feeding and another jar where there weren’t any fish. In the evening, Isa and I looked at those two samples and found 42 calenoid copepods (right) and a cladoceran in the sample from the feeding area, and nothing in the sample outside the feeding area. This is significant for two reasons. First, it is virtually certain that both the herring and the salmon were feeding on calenoid copepods. Second, the zooplankton were in one spot and not another, suggesting that some kind of drift cell was at work.
Glen R at Cowlitz:16:00, Partly sunny, 65º, water glass, 3/8” rain last night, mid flood tide (high at 9:30 p.m.), excellent visibility. Some 200+ salmon 3 – 5” south of dock, 3 – 4 schools, some thousands of herring, 2 age classes, 1 age class is 2 – 4”, other age class is 5 – 8 inches. Two otters around dock.
Steve B saw a seal two weeks ago at Point Disney with a 2’ salmon.
07.jul.19Julie L at Cowlitz: 16:45, heavy rain yesterday, sunny right now, over 70º, water rippled. 3 – 5” salmon from water depth of 4’ out to surround dock, at about 3’ under surface. Herring deep, under the salmon. One dragonfly, swallows under dock.
07.jul.20 Gretchen W: There’s a dead seal pup on the beach south of Bill Carlson’s private dock. It’s a gravel/cobble beach. We heard it crying earlier in the week. Typically, it takes a few days before the birds can get into a seal carcass. Vultures and eagles are predating this one, but there aren’t any ravens there yet.
Julie L: Our cat brought us a bat. See http://www.batsnorthwest.org/basic_bat_FAQs.html for some bat information.
07.jul.21 Julie L: 10:45 Cowlitz dock, foggy, over 60º, clearing to a misty, drizzly afternoon. 40 people gathered with Tina Wyllie-Echeverria to test three kinds of nets and learn gastric lavage. There a large, slowly moving school of seals, 46 or more of them, outside of the mooring buoys moved slowly east to west. I thought one of them was a dolphin but Camilla pointed out that as some of them swam along the surface, they were sideways and holding their flippers up. A baby seal was just above the high tide line on the PO side of the dock, looking alertly at us, not crying. Its ribs were showing. (It was dead on July 29).
First tow with beach seine: three kinds of sculpin (buffalo, shortnose, staghorn) Second tow: 2 juvenile chinook and others, gastric lavage on 104 mm one. Fyke net: Caught nothing. Purse seine at dock: 5 shiner perch (80 – 94 mm), 11 sand lance (one at 104mm), 2 kelp crabs. Mike C provided five crabs for a late lunch.
07.jul.22 Jannik R: Those big yellow striped chafer beetles have hatched.
Julie L at Cowlitz: 17:00. Drizle, no visible fish. Seal pup still at beach. Kingfisher.
07.jul.23 Julie L: 15:15 Cowlitz dock, sunny, over 70º. Fish are speckling the surface everywhere! From the float, we can see a school of perch, some small, some big, what could be salmon, and zillions of herring, feeding ripples everywhere. There is a zooplankton bloom, of 1 mm things that we looked at July 17 and decided were copepods. They have a single “antenna” with a red blob on the end of it that sticks out at an angle to the right. By the float, these oodle at about 40 per square inch on the surface. There are also about 5 crab megalopae per square foot further down to about 1 foot. That cute little baby seal finally died today. Out near Disney are about 25 pigeon guillemots.
07.jul.24Camilla L at Cowlitz: 18:00 Sunny, sea flat, no wind. Craploads of fish. Also some krill or crab larva. Fish jumping all over the place. They seem to jump in waves starting at one end of the school and moving to the other.
07.jul.25 Julie L at Cowlitz:12:30 Tight school of 1,000 3” herring East side of dock, low. Dragonflies and swallows flootering around. No gulls or guillemots visible. Three human swimmers, though.
18:00-21:00 Severson’s Cove, sunny, over 70º. Lots of no-see-ums, no mosquitos. Tide’s rising. The eddy formed in front of Babs’ house for about 20 minutes had big gobs of yellowish foam on it. Fish started jumping near sunset, and a couple of people were fishing from the beach. Glen R, they said, caught a silver there last week. An otter swam from C’s and went up the beach at the wetlands outlet east of R’s. Babs said that otters might raise two sets of young in a summer, since the family that swims by now seems considerably younger than the ones that appeared here earlier in summer. Or maybe it’s just a different family.
07.jul.27 Julie L: 14:00 – 20:00, Cowlitz, hazy sunshine, 71º, very faint breeze. Low tide at 10:32, high at 6:38. A small group of locals met Tina and Russel to test our new salmon net and do gastric lavage. We did three tows, one at the big alder towards Disney and two at Frances’ Cove. Each yielded juvenile “chinook.” (Later DNA tests revealed that most of the chinook were some other kind of salmon including steelhead) You can see details at http://thewhelk.org/news.
There were two very interesting results. One was that the salmon were from 69 to 116 mm long and with or without adipose fins (wild or hatchery). Apparently juveniles school up with whoever else is where they’ve individually decided to go. The second was that their stomach contents were not uniform. Two had swallowed juvenile sand lances, one 1/2 and the other 2/3 the size of the salmon itself. Others concentrated on what looked like shrimp, crabs, or copepods. I’d thought you could lump all fish dining preferences together but apparently not.
Madrona Murphy saw the aspen and said when they’re gnawed by beavers they regrow prolifically. The first shoots are high in tannic acid, which repels beavers, and then the acidity goes down. It’s symbiotic. Alder groves are often clonal, and when one is at the end of its lifetime, they all die. Winnie said that aspens grow at W’s beach, the volleyball court, and somewhere on the Hammond cliffs.
After the workshop, Anthony B said they’d moved a dead crow from the dock road.
07.jul.30 Julie L: Emily and I went to Hammond and back for the COASST beached bird walk, from 12:30 – 15:30. Sunny, over 75 degrees, no wind, mist on the flats. We counted 18 beached lion’s mane jellies, from 10 cm to 40 cm. There was one great blue heron, two crows at the clay flats, and two gulls. We waded from the clay flats to Hammond, seeing perch, flatfish, eels, sculpins, shore crabs, and a 20 cm floating chiton. There was some kind of circular growth on the kelp. A kayaker told us that, beyond chest depth, there were thousands of 5” fish, possibly juvenile salmon. At Hammond, there were about 5 more gulls. We heard an eagle, saw a couple of murrelets on the water, and saw the splashes from where seals were smacking the water in the distance. Seal pups called from Bare Rock.
07.jul.31Glen R at Cowlitz: 15:30 Sunny, clear. Wind <1 mph. Temp 75º+. Just after nine minus low tide. Water visibility excellent at least down to 15’ around dock. At least 10,000 herring around dock mostly to South side 4 – 6” some juvenile salmon. Also 4 – 6” (1) school had about 300 in it – looked like chinook). One big Lion’s Mane Jelly (15” diameter). Also one school Pacific Sand Lance, approximately one thousand – about 3” long, on West side of dock. Sand lance scared of other schools some.
Fledgeling Barn Swallows around. Three seagulls, two Pigeon Guillemonts. Herring really like it under eelgrass.
Camilla L at Cowlitz: 17:30 Lots and lots of salmon. All summer there have been hardly any red jellyfish but today we have seen at least seven in only ten minutes.
Julie L at Cowlitz: 17:30The water’s full of zooplankton. The fish are jumping like crazy, sounds like rain. They’re maybe 5”.
18:30We saw the following plankton, just by staring: crab megalopae (about .75mm), arrowworms (chaetognaths, 2 cm), comb jellies, baby other jellies, fish (2 cm), and dots.