November 2007 (in progress) · 3 November 2007, 13:31 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 – 50ยบ. 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.
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