<\/a>Yellow paintbrush flowers are among the late-blooming flowers in our meadows. (Photo by Mary F. Willson)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Past the iconic cottonwood tree, the offshore waters were occupied only by two marbled murrelets and a little bunch of horned grebes, all of which spent most of their time below the surface. Down along the beach, we paused for tea and a snack. Out at the tip of Gull Island, we spotted a humpback whale, cruising very slowly with an occasional breath. It crept along the island shore, sending up a spout or two. Eventually it dove, showing flukes that looked rather small. We hoped it was OK!<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The tide had left plenty of fish carcasses strewn about on the flat meadows. All were in advanced stages of decomposition, unappealing to most vertebrate scavengers. But a group of crows had found something exciting at the lower end of the grassy slough before the point. We left them to it.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The flower season was almost over. Felwort was finished, but some yarrow held on and yellow paintbrush was the main decoration.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Later in the month, near the start of the dike trail, I was greeted with the news that an avocet had been seen in one of the ponds. That’s a shorebird almost never seen in Alaska; we are way out of its normal geographic range, and this was reported to me as just the fifth record of this bird in our state. That was exciting news — but, of course, the bird had vanished by the time I got to the place where it had been sighted; reportedly it was scared off by a free-ranging dog. Avocets are very distinctive, good-sized shorebirds with lots of white in the plumage and, in breeding season, rusty heads and necks. They commonly forage by swishing their re-curved bills sideways through the water and soft sediments to capture invertebrates, often by touch alone, although they also hunt visually, pecking and grabbing. Curiously, the bills of females are more curvy than those of males. But why???<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t