Photo of the Morning

Fledgling robin plans next leg of flight

Regarding Heat Waves

It's all relative. (So glad we are not down there.)

Found this tourism video about Oatman at the Mohave Daily News website. Let's see if I can embed it. I don't know when this was taped but BLM wants people to stop feeding the burros. All those carrots are making them too fat!

Another Moose Story

These are pictures of the cow and adorable calves that visited last night. They fed in the raspberry patch while I sat on the porch taking pictures. 

In two of the photos the cow has spotted something disturbing in the lower part of our property. Her ears strain forward as she listens. She gathers the little ones and runs to a safer spot. It might have been a bear or another moose, but she wanted to keep the twins away from it.

Her straining ears remind me of a time I was visiting a cow moose with brand new twins and thought I was in for a stomping. 

The cows were often too exhausted to look for high quality browse after giving birth so I brought an armful of willow, a favorite food, for this one to eat while I sat on a log at the edge of her calving area, a small clearing in the trees and brush, to watch the calves. 

They had been born the day before and were all legs, wobbly, innocent and curious about the world. They smelled and tasted everything around them, cautiously working their way towards me. The little male, the bolder of the two, clumsily approached, sniffing my hands, my cap, my clothes, pressing his velvety soft nose against me. The shyer female kept a safer distance watching with big brown eyes, batting her impossibly long dark lashes. The world was quiet but for their snuffles and snorts, their mother's quiet chewing of leaves and the low hum of insects. 

I was sitting still as possible for fear of startling them, especially the big cow, and all was going well until the little female stumbled with a startled cry. The cow became immediately alert. Recognizing my vulnerability I was trying my best to look as non-threatening as possible but every part of that moose's body now suggested evil intent. 

Her previously relaxed demeanor was gone. Muscles tensed, ears straining forward, eyes beginning to blaze, she took a few threatening steps in my direction. 

I was about to get stomped. I could try to run, an action inviting disaster, or hold my ground and hope for a bluff charge. 

The moose was growing more agitated. I held my ground, sitting absolutely still on the log while she charged straight at me... and flew over the log, nearly hitting me as she hurtled by. She had spotted another moose and was driving it out of the area. I hadn't offended her at all. In fact she left me with the calves while she browsed a bit.

I visited several more times in the days before she finally led the twins away to abandon the calving area. I later saw them out in the bush and the little male walked right up to me. We sniffed nose to nose, then he returned to his mother and all three disappeared into the alder. He would never approach again.

Spit Birds

Temperature hit 70 here at 11 am. Expect it will go up a little by evening. I think it's the warmest we've seen it here yet. Fairbanks recorded a low temperature in the 70's yesterday for the first time in the modern era! Flat Earth-ers / Climate Deniers take note.

We're banished from the cabin for two showings today. Spent the morning on the Spit birdwatching. The cranes sure don't mind us or the dogs being around. Sometimes they even follow us. We are lucky the dogs show no interest in them. The Plover adults are still faking injury to distract us from the little ones that are quickly showing feathers in all the fuzz.

Sandhill Cranes

Semi-palmated Plover

Plover chick

Cow Moose

I was throwing the frisbee for the dogs in the back yard and startled this moose. She must have been in the raspberries and I never noticed her. She lit after Tag who was mid-air catching the frisbee. Lucky the old dog can still run. He made it to the porch (with the frisbee) and the moose  ended up in the front yard. She's pretty skinny and really shedding in this heat. No calves in sight. A barren cow, or maybe her calves didn't survive. Can't hardly begrudge her eating some greens. She was pretty cool with us afterwards. I think the flying frisbee freaked her out.

On Moose and Climate

Found an interesting article in the Homer News re the effects of the long hard winter on moose and fish, echoing some of my earlier concerns about the lack of vegetation. Quoting from the Homer News:

An area biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said he won’t be surprised if population surveys of moose show decreased survivability among the ungulates, especially among cows and calves.

“Before green-up, many (cows) were on the brink of starvation. We had several cases of moose dying in May and into June right here in town,” said Thomas McDonough, research biologist and moose expert with the Homer
office of Fish and Game.

Normally, newborns arrive more or less coincident with green-up, allowing near-starving cows to replenish depleted stores of energy necessary for their own survival and making it possible to lactate effectively. 

“Without having that occur at the normal time, there’s more stress for cows, and that’s often transferred to calves,” McDonough said. While newborns continue nursing for months, they begin consuming browse within days of birth. Thus green-up also provides calves with plentiful food.

Moose typically mate and conceive during the last few days of September and the first week of October, and give birth in late May and early June.

“The calving peak down here (on the Southern Peninsula) is the third week in May,” McDonough said.

Temperatures in May were often still in the 30s (degrees Fahrenheit), and at higher elevations, snow continued to fall off and on throughout the remainder of the month. Under such taxing environmental conditions, cow moose physiology can cause mothers in poor condition to delay calving by a few days, but not much longer, McDonough noted. But green-up came well after most mothers were due. Thus, many calves were likely born weeks before easily accessible browse became available, he said.

 “We are trying to assess the effect on the young,” McDonough said. “Even in a healthy population, moose calf survival is pretty low. Half will be dead in the first five or six weeks.”

Also, King Salmon returns are running late with local rivers too cold and too high for the fish to swim upstream to spawn.

Climate disruptions appear to be changing all the rules. Today Obama announces his plan to address climate change. We shall see how that goes. My expectations aren't high.

More From the Garden

In the midst of the biggest mosquito outbreak in Alaska ever (maybe), Fairbanks is having a mosquito repellent shortage. Now that's a disaster!

Chives

Oriental poppy

Rhubarb flowering

Tux and Tag

Flowers! Color!

Hard to believe I am saying this... we need a good rain!

Flower bed in yellow and blue.
Oriental poppies with drooping heads wait their turn.

Blue poppy

Columbine

Forget-me-not

Iris

Plover Tactics

 The plovers are keen to protect their young from us. In these two pictures an adult flops around as a distraction, faking a broken wing. After we pass and they are safe, the little ones return to mom and huddle under her wings to get warm.

A raft of otters

99.5% Done

 Almost finished with the garage siding! Just some trim to do, a ledge piece at the bottom of four windows. Second picture below shows two windows with completed trim. Very simple. We're getting bids on hanging sheet rock in the upstairs bonus room. Just too much for us to do ourselves. I think we might pick up this garage and take it down south with us.

Board and batten siding completed

Window trim on four windows left to do

Blue poppy waning

Wild iris in the Trollius

Spider in the Trollius

Homer Spit in 5 AM sunlight

Baked Alaska

End of the heat wave here in Homer. We got some much needed rain and the temperature is down to 55 today. The rain barrel and trough are full again. The mosquito hatch is a big one because of the slow spring thaw. Much worse at interior locations than here though.

The Plovers on the Spit are hatching. They look like fuzzy puffballs skittering around on toothpicks. So cute.