Taku
2022 - 2: Warbler Meadows
June 15 - 19
The Kathy M on the river
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It's day three and we've
been so
busy I've not had a chance to write (or, rather, haven't taken the time
to write). Today I was awake around 6:45 and decided to stay in
bed resting rather than jump to the day. Yesterday we took a long
adventure out along the slough and surrounding areas, so I didn't feel
a need to get going early, though we hadn't yesterday. When I finally
got up I found the propane tank empty, so changed that out right away
and lit the pilots on the stove. I failed at my first attempts at
lighting the refrigerator pilot and put the new lighter on the charger
when I left. I had heard interesting bird song among the willows where
we
exit the trail behind the cabin, so set out with a camp chair, deet, a
smoking mosquito coil, and my binoculars and set myself up in a glade
surrounded by willows and birds. They were so active that I didn't know
where to train my binoculars! The most frequently seen, mostly on the
north side, were a pair of yellow-rumped warblers, the female coming
into some willows right next to me. There were lots of yellow warblers
coming through, a Wilson's, a female/young male American redstart, plus
songs from orange-crowned and Townsend's. Always activity somewhere or
other or both. All four thrushes were singing as well as an alder
flycatcher and what may be a least flycatcher or similar, making nasal
two-toned songs and tossing his head back each time [he was later
confirmed as a least flycatcher, very rare in Alaska]. It was
spectacular
birdwatching; there wasn't a breath of wind and yet the bugs weren't
bothering me at all. Around 9:00 I went back to fetch my mother and
found her eating breakfast. We left the dogs behind and returned to a
much-diminished but still very good show. I was amazed at how much an
hour made in the activity of the birds. We stayed for about an hour and
a half and saw pretty much everything I'd seen earlier plus a
woodpecker who made a very loud call before we saw him (in silhouette
only) and swallows, one of which was actively chasing the other in the
air, to what end was unclear. We had so many looks at the yellow-rumped
warblers, enough to see that she was clearly white-throated (Myrtle's)
and he had a pale yellow throat (Audubon's), but a face that hinted at
Myrtle markings [an intergrade]. They are presumed to be a couple given
that they were
seen together and were both filling their beaks with bugs. A third
(Myrtle's) male was around.
On the way back we detoured in the forest to the north and walked into a mass of hungry mosquitoes. It was one of the worst swarms I'd ever seen and they ate me up (in my tanktop) mercilessly. At the Copse, we had a nice look at an alarming fox sparrow, and later heard a Pacific-slope flycatcher singing (as there has been around the cabin) and a warbling vireo, so I started another bird survey from there to the cabin. I counted 20 bites on my left arm and 21 on my right arm, but with one dose of campho phenique they didn't bother me.
I made quesadillas for lunch and then we got started on some tasks around the cabin. My mom started her brand new 2000 Honda generator on the front porch which she'd gotten ready yesterday and I cut three of the four cross pieces for the shutters on the bathroom window. They'd been put on backwards twenty some years ago and couldn't open flush with the walls, which made putting hooks to keep them open impractical, so they always shut on their own and darkened the bathroom. It turns out they were probably installed that way because the cross pieces holding them together were too long to allow them to shut as intended when installed the right way. Anyway, I cut three pieces and later the fourth piece as my mom fought to replace them on the inside instead of the outside. Meanwhile, I replaced most of the screws along the top of the garden box where they extended through the plywood (and threatened to scrape up gardening arms) except for three that had broken from their heads which I pounded down with a hammer. I then took clippers and clipped the path from the cabin down to the landing and the trail down to Alder and on the north side of the cabin and tied up roses hanging into the path on the south side with twisty ties, clipping the fireweed that remained. That way, we can walk on both sides of the cabin without pushing through brush. Finally, I took the little mower and mowed down the trail to the first landing and out to the point from the cabin. Inside, I moved the eight plastic chairs upstairs onto the deck outside for the summer, put out the box of mildew-smelling pillows on the deck to air in the sun, and moved all the linens from the dresser and night stand in my room to the other room upstairs so my mom can sort through it all.
Then my mom and I finally reconnected. She'd finished the shutters and nearly finished installing hooks to keep them open, but she'd forgotten to bring the loops they hook through, so that will be finished next time. While she had a cold drink, I went down to the water pump to change out the tarp, first folding up the old, heavy blue one (my nemesis), only then discovering that the tarp my mom had brought was too small. Meanwhile, my mom had taken the measuring cup with rotten salmon in it (accidentally left behind a month ago) to the river to dump it. We finally headed out on our afternoon walk at 2:40 with, deet, binoculars, and a metal detector. The trail was great until past Spruce Alley when we encountered some large snow dunes with spruces and alders bending over and under them and it took a bit to figure out where to go. It was the first of many areas of utter devastation from the heavy snowfall last winter. Much of the trail from there will need serious work--with a chainsaw probably--from all the heavily bent alders, but toward the end we encountered even bigger snow dunes, some of them ten feet tall, which eventually pushed us off trail and into an adjacent slough entrance, figuring we'd take the snow-free meadow from there. Shortly thereafter, we crossed a tiny slough and then I was greatly distracted by an unusual warbler singly loudly in the trees nearby--a Tennessee warbler. I wanted to see him, so I dropped the metal detector and backtracked, trying but failing to find him. Naturally, I started another bird survey to log it. Meanwhile, my mom had noticed the boundary marker by the slough and after a moment of great confusion, I realized we were farther along than presumed and were right on target, incidentally at nearly the same place that I'd seen my first Tennessee warbler last year. I took a waypoint at the marker (my fourth along the boundary), then we crossed the slough to explore the area beyond. It turned out to be spectacular, more open area between young spruces, all of which were ravaged by the winter with about six feet of bare, branch-less trunk, encircled at the bottom with the victims, pulled off as though they were being made ready for a burning at the stake. We came across my friend the birch tree (where I want my ashes scattered)--more beaten up but full of bright green leaves--wandered out to the edge of the dry ground overlooking the next slough and the meadow/cottonwood beyond, and then came back. I saw the Tennessee warbler finally, but only at a distance and in silhouette.
At that point it was drinks time and now I'm working on this as my mom makes dinner. Our trip upriver went reasonably well two days ago. We left a little early since we needed to fuel up on the way (and you never know how long that will take, especially in the summer when large yachts can take up a lot of space and time) and because the weather was sunny and the wind was supposed to be kicking up in the inlet a bit. When we got to Bishop, the water was a little choppy, but we were two hours before the tide, so we detoured to the Scar and puttered along the shore there watching the gulls nesting on the cliffs and the red feet of the guillemots in the water. We touched bottom again between the pieces of private land at Taku Point, perhaps too close to the glacier (there was a grounded log nearby) but made it past there, then took it slow along the meadows until well past the danger zone--both for whatever damaged the prop last time and the shallows (where we also touched bottom, going slowly, once). Ripples on the water may have outlined the sandbar, but I didn't trust it enough to try for the smooth water around them. Still, it seemed to start and end at the right spot. We arrived around 3:00 and I was delighted to find that the floats were less than a foot below the new landing. I'd thought for a long time that that would be the case at high tide (and normal water) but had been convinced by the persistently low water on the previous trip that we would in fact need a ramp. So thankful it worked out! Unloading was amazing from the dock to the landing and up the stairs. We carried one load to the cabin and opened up, then I opened Alder and took one more load up by cart while my mom worked on the pilots, fetching the rest later that evening. We tried to start the fridge pilot with the new starter, but wound up starting it with matches (success on the 16th try after many failed attempts and many attempts where the gas lit and billowed and died). My mom heated up corn chowder for dinner, after which we rallied (despite mutual exhaustion) and walked back to the meadow with the dogs to pick up a camera card. It was warm and glorious and the dogs ran in ecstatic circles on the low mound of snow left where it was a ten-foot dune in May.
Both tired, we weren't up early, and didn't push ourselves to get going in the morning, so it was 9:30 before we embarked on our canoe voyage. I was really itching to get to the slough and into the meadow, having dreamed about the warblers out there for weeks. There were warblers, though now with so many options, I wasn't confident I could tell all the species apart, so I was also anxious to work that out. It's amazing how different the songs are for the same species just between Juneau and the Taku. I started an eBird survey as soon as we hit the slough, already hot from the sunshine in a blue sky. Jenny hopped in the canoe before we got it to the water, a far cry from the dog who had to be drug inside previously. Fox sparrows, Lincoln's warblers, and yellow warblers dominated the soundscape there along with a more distant yellowthroat. And, up above, a buteo soared out from the mountainside. I stopped looking to point it out to my mother and so missed the prime time to look for telltale markings on its underside, so all I can say is that it was very pale. She was on higher ground and saw it land in a spruce. An interesting start, as we've seen enough red-tailed hawks here to wonder if they're nesting, especially in this area near the mountainside.
Our next stop was the boundary marker, but on the way we kept looking for the birds singing around us. We also spotted a raptor soaring high above near the northern edge of the meadows; when it banked, a red tail shone in the sun. It was much farther away and higher up, but I'd say it was darker on the bottom and, given the distance, also unlikely to be the first one we saw--more suggestion of a pair. Not long after, I spotted another raptor soaring up above with a longer, narrower tail, pale underside and black wingtips. When it banked, a gray back and white rump were revealed, a male northern harrier. We disembarked at the property line and I took a waypoint at the first inside boundary marker. It seemed that there were Lincoln's sparrows in every willow stand. On the way out, we found the boundary marker on the far side of the slough and took a waypoint there, then canoed around Big Bend near to the mountain and went for another walk to the boundary marker on the mountainside. The cottongrass was coming into bloom and the whole meadow was glorious. We followed an animal trail along the willows and then broke out into the bog where we watched robins perch on short logs and launch themselves down onto the boggy ground. There were more than two and they were uneasy about our presence. I took a waypoint there, photographed a couple of plants to identify (including another Steven's spirea I think), and we headed back. The day was so glorious and the canoeing so nice that we traveled onward until we reached the dam. I started another eBird survey after watching a male junco repeatedly land on the sheer, smooth rock face near the bend and bop around. There was a small overhang above him and a streak of grassy debris nearby, making me think that someone had nested up there. It didn't seem like junco nesting grounds, but he was interested in something--juncos are rarely seen up here. One swallow flew overhead--iridescent blue-green on the back side with white near the rump, not a barn swallow as I would have expected.
When we reached the dam, overflowing on the mountain side, we decided it was time for lunch. I wanted to move a bit farther away from the dam so the rushing water sounds wouldn't drown out birds, but we couldn't find a good spot. We stopped at the first point on the mountain side and looked around on a little rise, but it was just grass and willows and wet as far as we could see. Without knowing where an erratic was, it was likely to be low and wet all around that area. Instead, we canoed back to Big Bend and ate lunch on the large moraine there. It was covered in columbine, geraniums, irises, and young paintbrushes and was glorious. All around us the meadow spread in spectacular beauty--especially the fields of purple-blue irises--against a backdrop of the mountains and glaciers. Unbelievable country.
We got back to the cabin around 2:00, covered in deet and sunscreen and exhausted. We did get started on a few projects, though, after a break. My mom started to work on the shutters mentioned above while I tried to set up a mosquito cover over the swing on the porch. It was meant for a bed and I thought it would work perfectly, but it had a few flaws, not the least of which is that there was no practical way to get it around the chains holding the swing up. Then it turned it out it is only about four feet high, so in order for it to reach the ground, it's only about chest high, which looks weird. I did put enough hooks in to at least stretch it out, but then put it all away. While my mom continued on the shutters, I set up a ladder under the olive barrel, rinsed off the hose, and tried to reattach it. It had been pulled off and chewed on by a bear and was bent and broken, so I failed. I was pleased to find that the barrel was holding water, though, and I wound up sitting on top of the ladder and holding a water jug about eight inches from the faucet and letting the water pour inside. It spilled a lot and soaked some of my clothes and took about ten minutes while the mosquitoes swarmed me, but we have another jug of water available and it was good to know that at least the barrel itself is functional. Then I clipped my way to the landing, more or less clearing the trail from the cabin to there, and checked up on the boat. While there I cleaned up the lines a little, removing the line from the dock walkway (borrowed from the Kathy M) and replacing it with two lines, one on either side, so it can be pulled up snug for loading and unloading. A short yellow line is on the downriver side, tied to an alder, and I used an existing unused line tied to the stump on the upriver side for the upriver corner, moving the line around the stump farther up so it's easier to reach to pull the floats in. I also picked up a line or two that had been stashed on the bank, retied some lines to make them tidier, and coiled and hung all the unused lines on a tree at the top. I also untied the line around a live tree that was starting to be girdled, loosening it and moving the line farther up the tree so it should have some time before it threatens girdling again. By this time my mom was working on getting her new little generator going so we could easily cut the pieces of shutter that needed it and I was beat, so I lit a mosquito coil and chilled on the swing while the hummingbirds vied for the one large feeder and one small feeder that had survived the bear attack.
We went to bed fairly early, me very pleased with the tidiness of my room. I'd started organizing it before we'd left in the morning and finished it some time in the afternoon. Ever since the 17-person family trip in 2017, it's been cluttered with sleeping bags and sleeping pads and a twin mattress and box spring on their edge in the middle of the floor. I put the latter flat under the eaves with the various bedding neatly stashed on top, swept everything, and further organized until it was a roomy, tidy, cozy place, and more my own again.
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I'm sitting on the foot stool in front of the window anxiously waiting for Talon and Lauren to appear. Their flight was scheduled for 8:00 and we gave up on them and came back to the cabin at 9:45, having just settled down when we heard the plan buzz us and back we went to the slough. Thankfully, the pickup was delayed until 6:15 as well, so we could still get a full day in. Though Talon discounted the big tree that came down at the landing as a small project, he's taken half the day to buck it up, and more than an hour passed after he said it would be 15 minutes before he was through. Then he started working on the small dead tree nearby and here it is almost 2:00 and only one tree down. At least we do have one large tree bucked up for firewood now.
But the morning was glorious. We got up around 6:30 and were heading to the boat an hour later, planning to bird watch while we waited for the flight. The Kathy M nestled nicely into the bank at the bottom of the alder clump near the slough and we hiked inland a little ways until we found a way through the shrubs to high ground. It had low vegetation, some small spruces near the bank, the row of alders and willows between us and the slough, the wider meadow in the direction of the mountain with patches and rows of willow farther out, and the distant row of spruces on the other side of the fireweed meadow. We set up chairs and lit mosquito coils at the edge of the trees near the river, but were so consistently scolded by a pair of Lincoln's sparrows--often together in the spruces--that we moved closer to the edge of the wet meadow and soon they quieted. At least, they did when we didn't come back to look at the yellowthroat who occasionally visited the area to sing, the yellow-rumped warblers who foraged in the area, or the spotted sandpiper that kept landing on the shore. We wound up there for over an hour and a half having a thoroughly delightful time watching and listening. There were Lincoln's sparrow pairs up and downriver behind us and another singing in the meadow (probably many more there), some of whom foraged in the fen and brought back beackfulls of bugs. Yellow warblers were out in the meadows and occasionally came into the mountain alder stand toward the slough. A young robin fledgling was visited by parents in the willow clumps toward the slough (his face not fully feathered). In the distance and unseen were one or more orange-crowned warblers, alder flycatchers, Townsend's warblers, etc. But the most fun were the pair of Myrtle yellow-rumped warblers who frequented the spruces and little willows along the river, often near each other, hawking and watching. The female disappeared into a lone spruce and my mom saw suspicious behavior, so I slowly walked over there and, to my great surprise, flushed the mother off her nest tucked into the dense branches of the tree. She flew to the bottom of a nearby tree and fluttered strangely as though she couldn't get a grip on the branches--surely playing wounded bird, though silently. We peered quickly at the grass nest tucked away and then left it to them and she soon returned and hawked acrobatically from its branches. I'm sure we could have found a Lincoln's sparrow nest in the same area had we been diligent.
Around 9:45 we decided to call it, joking that the plane (which was supposed to depart Juneau at 8:00) would arrive just as we were taking off. We had actually just sat down in the cabin around 10:00 when the plane buzzed us and off we went--now a little grumpy--back to the slough where Ed and his passengers were waiting for us on the southern side of the slough. The river had risen considerably in the sunshine and the sedge even high on the banks was flooded, so there was no dry ground to land on. Talon and Lauren hopped out, Talon in sandals which worked well for the wading. The gear that followed was impressive--two large and two small saws and several bags of gear, one very heavy, plus a gas can and other sundry items. Talon carried Lauren over to the boat. I was pleased to hear that pickup would be at 6:15, which made up for the late arrival which was never explained. We unloaded the gear onto the dock and set Talon to work on the large tree by the landing, me already stressed about the shortness of the day. He indicated it would be quick and light work, but it was around 1:00 before they finished. While they started work, my mom and I tied green line around the trees overhanging the bank that we wanted cut into the river to help with erosion, wrapping one end around the trunk above where we wanted the cut and tying the other around a solid tree in the forest. This was fun to begin with, but quickly became a bit overwhelming, one cluster of four trees that had gone into the river together in particular defeated my gumption as I climbed through them, partly because the cutting was going so slowly on the downed tree that I despaired of him ever reaching the trees I was tying. But we continued in hope--three trees below the landing and a dozen or so above the landing including a few on the trail near the cabin.
And still the cutting continued. Oh, the cutting and the resting, I should say. I went down to check on them multiple times when the chainsaw stopped cutting; once the saw was out of gas and the job was promised to be done in 15 minutes. It was over 30 before the sawing started again and an hour or so before it was done. In the meantime, I showed Lauren the wolf tree and she shared my suspicion that it was rotten, then showed her the broken and leaning tree that my mom had found on our after-dinner walk to look for downed trees the night before so she could assess what they should bring to buck it. Somewhere in there my mom and I filled the water tank while Lauren and Talon worked, as I knew it was getting low. The engine abruptly stopped every five minutes--backfiring once--but started right up again. Something to investigate. Last time I could fiddle with the throttle to get it to hang on, but this time it quickly died. Good to have a full tank, though, and we'd been using it about four days and it wasn't full the last time.
Finally, I returned to the landing when the sawing stopped and led them to the leaning tree upriver, carrying gas and oil to help out. Unfortunately, I missed the turn and took them on a rather circuitous route there and left them to it. Talon said it would take maybe 45 minutes. Half an hour later I went back, having heard the saw for only a few seconds. One chain had come off and the other had to be switched (having been put on backwards). Lauren followed me back so I could fill her water container and get a mosquito coil burning for them and when we returned Talon had bucked up some limbs and part of a dead log adjacent to the tree in question and I watched him start limbing and cutting the one he was supposed to cut. His confidence and ease with the saw is impressive and slightly terrifying.
I left them to it and came back to the sweltering upstairs to dust my room and part of the other upstairs room while my mom worked on organizing linens. My room looks so good and is cleaner than it's been in many years! I even retrieved the green kerosene lamp into my room so I can light it at night. When I went back upriver to urge the work forward, it was around 3:00, with so much more we'd hoped to cut before 6:00. They were done, but Talon had been swarmed with hungry horse flies. I've never seen such horse flies away from the water and they did look awful. We quickly packed up and beat a hasty retreat, down to the spruce in the alders along the river that's in the view. I gave instructions and, when they asked for snacks because they'd left their lunches behind, I hastily made them some sandwiches (glad I'd asked my mom to spring her leftover lunchmeat) and gave them a can of pringles and fig newtons and diet root beers and bubblies for each. They said they'd get going again after eating for 15 minutes--I would come down when the saw started to show them where to go next once he cut the small spruce. My mom was washing windows and putting up screens, as the heat was making the cabin uncomfortable, and I used some duct tape to temporarily fix patches in the screens, and continued cleaning. After half an hour of no sawing sounds, I made my way down there with clippers and started clipping overhanging alders and willows along the river path near where they were lunching on the bank, hoping this would inspire them to get up, but after about ten minutes of that I finally walked over and they started work again. Talon retied my line around the tree first--I think he wound up doing that for every line we tied--taking much longer than I wanted with that one tree. Then we headed down to the landing and my mom joined us to help out. The highest priority was the tree leaning over the dock itself, which was of course the most complicated. My mom took the Kathy M out to putter while Lauren and I untied the upriver dock lines so it could swing downriver out from under the tree. After tying some complicated lines to nearby trees, Talon finally climbed up, thoroughly limbed the tree within a few feet of the top, and cut it off in several chunks. All went into the water just upriver of the dock. Initially I thought the limbs would be great to put under the landing, but it turned out to be trouble later. When he was finally done it was 5:00 and I knew we wouldn't get all the trees cut. I sent him downriver to cut the two pairs farther below the landing while I got the dock back in place so it was out from under the tree just downriver of it, then went back to watch what he was up to.
The details don't really matter and I've provided too many already. It was nearing the end of a very long and stressful day and I was disappointed that we wouldn't accomplish as much as I'd hoped. Everything seemed to take longer than it should. But the next hour was fairly productive in the end. After the downriver tree at the dock was down and my mom was back tied up, he went back downriver for one that was only barely leaning in, then upriver to the biggest tree there (the farthest upriver near the dock), which I figured was the last. It was huge, it was 6:00, and we needed to pack everything up again. While sawing continued out of sight and I waited for Lauren to come help pack their things, my mom and I loaded what we could and the Ward Air 180 flew over. It was 6:15. Of course Lauren needed to stay with Talon to look out for him and it turned out that he had also cut the four trees in the huge annoying cluster, so my work there was ultimately not for naught. Perhaps it was worth being a little late. The only trees we'd wanted cut that weren't were the several along the path upriver of the old landing. We hastened to load up and zipped down to the slough where Ed was graciously waiting for us. We reversed the process from the morning, though this time I stayed holding onto the wing of the plane (whether I needed to or not) and Lauren carried the heaviest bag through the even higher water rather than getting a piggyback. The evening was still and stunning, sun glowing on the top half of the mountains while we were in early evening shadow; everything was in sparkling clarity.
Back at the cabin we poured a little wine and sat, so stunned and exhausted by the day that we weren't even very hungry. Eventually I heated up the split pea soup I'd brought and we ate that with toasted rolls and butter, grateful to have a simple dinner. We'd imagined ourselves breaking open the champagne in celebration, but instead we just went to bed early, totally wiped out. Oh, and while we'd gone to pick them up (the second time), a bear had come up on the porch and bitten holes in the top of one of the blue water jugs, leaving a wet footprint to sign his work.
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Some time in the early morning I heard a brief but steady downpour and I officially discarded the possibility of rising early for a final morning of bird watching. Instead we slept in a little, worked on our logs a little, and then finished up some projects and packed. My mom washed dishes and installed a new hummingbird feeder pole from the upstairs porch to hopefully bear proof it (the one she installed last time had come down, possibly from bear action). I finished dusting upstairs, pulled the cots out of Alder, covered the water pump with a new tarp (one I'd brought a few years before) and then headed out and continued reclaiming the path along the waterfront and the meadow on the upriver side of the cottonwood copse, clipping back the reaching alders and willows and spruce boughs and pulling up many more little alders, and even starting to clip off blueberries so one can walk it without brushing against them. It's not finished, but it's opened back up again and another hour or so of work will probably do the trick. While I was down there I noticed that the small spruce Talon cut into the river had drifted with the current past the eroding bank at the old landing where I think we imagined it would go. That's what we get for leaving generous slack in the line; it would take a boat to pull it back up.
We visited Alder to take measurements of the broken window and make a plan for a door to the lean-to, then had quesadillas for lunch and took off for a final canoe. It was short but pleasant. We first canoed around the island, then to the new beaver lodge before trudged inland, bushwhacking more than usual as we tried a new route. We heard the Tennessee warbler again in the same spot, then crossed to the area of spruce devastation. We returned via the usual path near the property line and glided back to the landing.
We finished packing and cleaning and closing up and ate havarti-guacamole sandwiches for a quick dinner. I carried the cots and pushed a load of gear down to the dock while my mom finished the log, and then we were off shortly after 6:00. We took the meadow slowly in fear of touching bottom and the rock (or whatever we had hit in May), although the high water in the river surely eliminated the risk. The floats were about eight inches below the level of the landing when we arrived, but had soon risen to about even with them and remained there at all tidal levels all weekend (we later saw that the cfs has risen to 50,000 during this time). We did touch bottom (maybe) out in front of Taku Point and took the rest of that section slowly. I'm beginning to wonder if my inexplicable engine trouble in that same area has been the result of touching bottom without realizing it, as the silt didn't come up for the Kathy M either but it had clearly hit on the way up. We determined that closer to the glacier was the right choice in the future, on the other side of the grounded log. Once we escaped the river at Flat Point we broke out the tiny bottles of champagne and chatted our way to town, rolling over some southeasterly seas between Cooper and Salisbury, but nothing alarming. Showers were particularly welcome that night!
On the way back we detoured in the forest to the north and walked into a mass of hungry mosquitoes. It was one of the worst swarms I'd ever seen and they ate me up (in my tanktop) mercilessly. At the Copse, we had a nice look at an alarming fox sparrow, and later heard a Pacific-slope flycatcher singing (as there has been around the cabin) and a warbling vireo, so I started another bird survey from there to the cabin. I counted 20 bites on my left arm and 21 on my right arm, but with one dose of campho phenique they didn't bother me.
I made quesadillas for lunch and then we got started on some tasks around the cabin. My mom started her brand new 2000 Honda generator on the front porch which she'd gotten ready yesterday and I cut three of the four cross pieces for the shutters on the bathroom window. They'd been put on backwards twenty some years ago and couldn't open flush with the walls, which made putting hooks to keep them open impractical, so they always shut on their own and darkened the bathroom. It turns out they were probably installed that way because the cross pieces holding them together were too long to allow them to shut as intended when installed the right way. Anyway, I cut three pieces and later the fourth piece as my mom fought to replace them on the inside instead of the outside. Meanwhile, I replaced most of the screws along the top of the garden box where they extended through the plywood (and threatened to scrape up gardening arms) except for three that had broken from their heads which I pounded down with a hammer. I then took clippers and clipped the path from the cabin down to the landing and the trail down to Alder and on the north side of the cabin and tied up roses hanging into the path on the south side with twisty ties, clipping the fireweed that remained. That way, we can walk on both sides of the cabin without pushing through brush. Finally, I took the little mower and mowed down the trail to the first landing and out to the point from the cabin. Inside, I moved the eight plastic chairs upstairs onto the deck outside for the summer, put out the box of mildew-smelling pillows on the deck to air in the sun, and moved all the linens from the dresser and night stand in my room to the other room upstairs so my mom can sort through it all.
Then my mom and I finally reconnected. She'd finished the shutters and nearly finished installing hooks to keep them open, but she'd forgotten to bring the loops they hook through, so that will be finished next time. While she had a cold drink, I went down to the water pump to change out the tarp, first folding up the old, heavy blue one (my nemesis), only then discovering that the tarp my mom had brought was too small. Meanwhile, my mom had taken the measuring cup with rotten salmon in it (accidentally left behind a month ago) to the river to dump it. We finally headed out on our afternoon walk at 2:40 with, deet, binoculars, and a metal detector. The trail was great until past Spruce Alley when we encountered some large snow dunes with spruces and alders bending over and under them and it took a bit to figure out where to go. It was the first of many areas of utter devastation from the heavy snowfall last winter. Much of the trail from there will need serious work--with a chainsaw probably--from all the heavily bent alders, but toward the end we encountered even bigger snow dunes, some of them ten feet tall, which eventually pushed us off trail and into an adjacent slough entrance, figuring we'd take the snow-free meadow from there. Shortly thereafter, we crossed a tiny slough and then I was greatly distracted by an unusual warbler singly loudly in the trees nearby--a Tennessee warbler. I wanted to see him, so I dropped the metal detector and backtracked, trying but failing to find him. Naturally, I started another bird survey to log it. Meanwhile, my mom had noticed the boundary marker by the slough and after a moment of great confusion, I realized we were farther along than presumed and were right on target, incidentally at nearly the same place that I'd seen my first Tennessee warbler last year. I took a waypoint at the marker (my fourth along the boundary), then we crossed the slough to explore the area beyond. It turned out to be spectacular, more open area between young spruces, all of which were ravaged by the winter with about six feet of bare, branch-less trunk, encircled at the bottom with the victims, pulled off as though they were being made ready for a burning at the stake. We came across my friend the birch tree (where I want my ashes scattered)--more beaten up but full of bright green leaves--wandered out to the edge of the dry ground overlooking the next slough and the meadow/cottonwood beyond, and then came back. I saw the Tennessee warbler finally, but only at a distance and in silhouette.
At that point it was drinks time and now I'm working on this as my mom makes dinner. Our trip upriver went reasonably well two days ago. We left a little early since we needed to fuel up on the way (and you never know how long that will take, especially in the summer when large yachts can take up a lot of space and time) and because the weather was sunny and the wind was supposed to be kicking up in the inlet a bit. When we got to Bishop, the water was a little choppy, but we were two hours before the tide, so we detoured to the Scar and puttered along the shore there watching the gulls nesting on the cliffs and the red feet of the guillemots in the water. We touched bottom again between the pieces of private land at Taku Point, perhaps too close to the glacier (there was a grounded log nearby) but made it past there, then took it slow along the meadows until well past the danger zone--both for whatever damaged the prop last time and the shallows (where we also touched bottom, going slowly, once). Ripples on the water may have outlined the sandbar, but I didn't trust it enough to try for the smooth water around them. Still, it seemed to start and end at the right spot. We arrived around 3:00 and I was delighted to find that the floats were less than a foot below the new landing. I'd thought for a long time that that would be the case at high tide (and normal water) but had been convinced by the persistently low water on the previous trip that we would in fact need a ramp. So thankful it worked out! Unloading was amazing from the dock to the landing and up the stairs. We carried one load to the cabin and opened up, then I opened Alder and took one more load up by cart while my mom worked on the pilots, fetching the rest later that evening. We tried to start the fridge pilot with the new starter, but wound up starting it with matches (success on the 16th try after many failed attempts and many attempts where the gas lit and billowed and died). My mom heated up corn chowder for dinner, after which we rallied (despite mutual exhaustion) and walked back to the meadow with the dogs to pick up a camera card. It was warm and glorious and the dogs ran in ecstatic circles on the low mound of snow left where it was a ten-foot dune in May.
Both tired, we weren't up early, and didn't push ourselves to get going in the morning, so it was 9:30 before we embarked on our canoe voyage. I was really itching to get to the slough and into the meadow, having dreamed about the warblers out there for weeks. There were warblers, though now with so many options, I wasn't confident I could tell all the species apart, so I was also anxious to work that out. It's amazing how different the songs are for the same species just between Juneau and the Taku. I started an eBird survey as soon as we hit the slough, already hot from the sunshine in a blue sky. Jenny hopped in the canoe before we got it to the water, a far cry from the dog who had to be drug inside previously. Fox sparrows, Lincoln's warblers, and yellow warblers dominated the soundscape there along with a more distant yellowthroat. And, up above, a buteo soared out from the mountainside. I stopped looking to point it out to my mother and so missed the prime time to look for telltale markings on its underside, so all I can say is that it was very pale. She was on higher ground and saw it land in a spruce. An interesting start, as we've seen enough red-tailed hawks here to wonder if they're nesting, especially in this area near the mountainside.
Our next stop was the boundary marker, but on the way we kept looking for the birds singing around us. We also spotted a raptor soaring high above near the northern edge of the meadows; when it banked, a red tail shone in the sun. It was much farther away and higher up, but I'd say it was darker on the bottom and, given the distance, also unlikely to be the first one we saw--more suggestion of a pair. Not long after, I spotted another raptor soaring up above with a longer, narrower tail, pale underside and black wingtips. When it banked, a gray back and white rump were revealed, a male northern harrier. We disembarked at the property line and I took a waypoint at the first inside boundary marker. It seemed that there were Lincoln's sparrows in every willow stand. On the way out, we found the boundary marker on the far side of the slough and took a waypoint there, then canoed around Big Bend near to the mountain and went for another walk to the boundary marker on the mountainside. The cottongrass was coming into bloom and the whole meadow was glorious. We followed an animal trail along the willows and then broke out into the bog where we watched robins perch on short logs and launch themselves down onto the boggy ground. There were more than two and they were uneasy about our presence. I took a waypoint there, photographed a couple of plants to identify (including another Steven's spirea I think), and we headed back. The day was so glorious and the canoeing so nice that we traveled onward until we reached the dam. I started another eBird survey after watching a male junco repeatedly land on the sheer, smooth rock face near the bend and bop around. There was a small overhang above him and a streak of grassy debris nearby, making me think that someone had nested up there. It didn't seem like junco nesting grounds, but he was interested in something--juncos are rarely seen up here. One swallow flew overhead--iridescent blue-green on the back side with white near the rump, not a barn swallow as I would have expected.
When we reached the dam, overflowing on the mountain side, we decided it was time for lunch. I wanted to move a bit farther away from the dam so the rushing water sounds wouldn't drown out birds, but we couldn't find a good spot. We stopped at the first point on the mountain side and looked around on a little rise, but it was just grass and willows and wet as far as we could see. Without knowing where an erratic was, it was likely to be low and wet all around that area. Instead, we canoed back to Big Bend and ate lunch on the large moraine there. It was covered in columbine, geraniums, irises, and young paintbrushes and was glorious. All around us the meadow spread in spectacular beauty--especially the fields of purple-blue irises--against a backdrop of the mountains and glaciers. Unbelievable country.
We got back to the cabin around 2:00, covered in deet and sunscreen and exhausted. We did get started on a few projects, though, after a break. My mom started to work on the shutters mentioned above while I tried to set up a mosquito cover over the swing on the porch. It was meant for a bed and I thought it would work perfectly, but it had a few flaws, not the least of which is that there was no practical way to get it around the chains holding the swing up. Then it turned it out it is only about four feet high, so in order for it to reach the ground, it's only about chest high, which looks weird. I did put enough hooks in to at least stretch it out, but then put it all away. While my mom continued on the shutters, I set up a ladder under the olive barrel, rinsed off the hose, and tried to reattach it. It had been pulled off and chewed on by a bear and was bent and broken, so I failed. I was pleased to find that the barrel was holding water, though, and I wound up sitting on top of the ladder and holding a water jug about eight inches from the faucet and letting the water pour inside. It spilled a lot and soaked some of my clothes and took about ten minutes while the mosquitoes swarmed me, but we have another jug of water available and it was good to know that at least the barrel itself is functional. Then I clipped my way to the landing, more or less clearing the trail from the cabin to there, and checked up on the boat. While there I cleaned up the lines a little, removing the line from the dock walkway (borrowed from the Kathy M) and replacing it with two lines, one on either side, so it can be pulled up snug for loading and unloading. A short yellow line is on the downriver side, tied to an alder, and I used an existing unused line tied to the stump on the upriver side for the upriver corner, moving the line around the stump farther up so it's easier to reach to pull the floats in. I also picked up a line or two that had been stashed on the bank, retied some lines to make them tidier, and coiled and hung all the unused lines on a tree at the top. I also untied the line around a live tree that was starting to be girdled, loosening it and moving the line farther up the tree so it should have some time before it threatens girdling again. By this time my mom was working on getting her new little generator going so we could easily cut the pieces of shutter that needed it and I was beat, so I lit a mosquito coil and chilled on the swing while the hummingbirds vied for the one large feeder and one small feeder that had survived the bear attack.
We went to bed fairly early, me very pleased with the tidiness of my room. I'd started organizing it before we'd left in the morning and finished it some time in the afternoon. Ever since the 17-person family trip in 2017, it's been cluttered with sleeping bags and sleeping pads and a twin mattress and box spring on their edge in the middle of the floor. I put the latter flat under the eaves with the various bedding neatly stashed on top, swept everything, and further organized until it was a roomy, tidy, cozy place, and more my own again.
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I'm sitting on the foot stool in front of the window anxiously waiting for Talon and Lauren to appear. Their flight was scheduled for 8:00 and we gave up on them and came back to the cabin at 9:45, having just settled down when we heard the plan buzz us and back we went to the slough. Thankfully, the pickup was delayed until 6:15 as well, so we could still get a full day in. Though Talon discounted the big tree that came down at the landing as a small project, he's taken half the day to buck it up, and more than an hour passed after he said it would be 15 minutes before he was through. Then he started working on the small dead tree nearby and here it is almost 2:00 and only one tree down. At least we do have one large tree bucked up for firewood now.
But the morning was glorious. We got up around 6:30 and were heading to the boat an hour later, planning to bird watch while we waited for the flight. The Kathy M nestled nicely into the bank at the bottom of the alder clump near the slough and we hiked inland a little ways until we found a way through the shrubs to high ground. It had low vegetation, some small spruces near the bank, the row of alders and willows between us and the slough, the wider meadow in the direction of the mountain with patches and rows of willow farther out, and the distant row of spruces on the other side of the fireweed meadow. We set up chairs and lit mosquito coils at the edge of the trees near the river, but were so consistently scolded by a pair of Lincoln's sparrows--often together in the spruces--that we moved closer to the edge of the wet meadow and soon they quieted. At least, they did when we didn't come back to look at the yellowthroat who occasionally visited the area to sing, the yellow-rumped warblers who foraged in the area, or the spotted sandpiper that kept landing on the shore. We wound up there for over an hour and a half having a thoroughly delightful time watching and listening. There were Lincoln's sparrow pairs up and downriver behind us and another singing in the meadow (probably many more there), some of whom foraged in the fen and brought back beackfulls of bugs. Yellow warblers were out in the meadows and occasionally came into the mountain alder stand toward the slough. A young robin fledgling was visited by parents in the willow clumps toward the slough (his face not fully feathered). In the distance and unseen were one or more orange-crowned warblers, alder flycatchers, Townsend's warblers, etc. But the most fun were the pair of Myrtle yellow-rumped warblers who frequented the spruces and little willows along the river, often near each other, hawking and watching. The female disappeared into a lone spruce and my mom saw suspicious behavior, so I slowly walked over there and, to my great surprise, flushed the mother off her nest tucked into the dense branches of the tree. She flew to the bottom of a nearby tree and fluttered strangely as though she couldn't get a grip on the branches--surely playing wounded bird, though silently. We peered quickly at the grass nest tucked away and then left it to them and she soon returned and hawked acrobatically from its branches. I'm sure we could have found a Lincoln's sparrow nest in the same area had we been diligent.
Around 9:45 we decided to call it, joking that the plane (which was supposed to depart Juneau at 8:00) would arrive just as we were taking off. We had actually just sat down in the cabin around 10:00 when the plane buzzed us and off we went--now a little grumpy--back to the slough where Ed and his passengers were waiting for us on the southern side of the slough. The river had risen considerably in the sunshine and the sedge even high on the banks was flooded, so there was no dry ground to land on. Talon and Lauren hopped out, Talon in sandals which worked well for the wading. The gear that followed was impressive--two large and two small saws and several bags of gear, one very heavy, plus a gas can and other sundry items. Talon carried Lauren over to the boat. I was pleased to hear that pickup would be at 6:15, which made up for the late arrival which was never explained. We unloaded the gear onto the dock and set Talon to work on the large tree by the landing, me already stressed about the shortness of the day. He indicated it would be quick and light work, but it was around 1:00 before they finished. While they started work, my mom and I tied green line around the trees overhanging the bank that we wanted cut into the river to help with erosion, wrapping one end around the trunk above where we wanted the cut and tying the other around a solid tree in the forest. This was fun to begin with, but quickly became a bit overwhelming, one cluster of four trees that had gone into the river together in particular defeated my gumption as I climbed through them, partly because the cutting was going so slowly on the downed tree that I despaired of him ever reaching the trees I was tying. But we continued in hope--three trees below the landing and a dozen or so above the landing including a few on the trail near the cabin.
And still the cutting continued. Oh, the cutting and the resting, I should say. I went down to check on them multiple times when the chainsaw stopped cutting; once the saw was out of gas and the job was promised to be done in 15 minutes. It was over 30 before the sawing started again and an hour or so before it was done. In the meantime, I showed Lauren the wolf tree and she shared my suspicion that it was rotten, then showed her the broken and leaning tree that my mom had found on our after-dinner walk to look for downed trees the night before so she could assess what they should bring to buck it. Somewhere in there my mom and I filled the water tank while Lauren and Talon worked, as I knew it was getting low. The engine abruptly stopped every five minutes--backfiring once--but started right up again. Something to investigate. Last time I could fiddle with the throttle to get it to hang on, but this time it quickly died. Good to have a full tank, though, and we'd been using it about four days and it wasn't full the last time.
Finally, I returned to the landing when the sawing stopped and led them to the leaning tree upriver, carrying gas and oil to help out. Unfortunately, I missed the turn and took them on a rather circuitous route there and left them to it. Talon said it would take maybe 45 minutes. Half an hour later I went back, having heard the saw for only a few seconds. One chain had come off and the other had to be switched (having been put on backwards). Lauren followed me back so I could fill her water container and get a mosquito coil burning for them and when we returned Talon had bucked up some limbs and part of a dead log adjacent to the tree in question and I watched him start limbing and cutting the one he was supposed to cut. His confidence and ease with the saw is impressive and slightly terrifying.
I left them to it and came back to the sweltering upstairs to dust my room and part of the other upstairs room while my mom worked on organizing linens. My room looks so good and is cleaner than it's been in many years! I even retrieved the green kerosene lamp into my room so I can light it at night. When I went back upriver to urge the work forward, it was around 3:00, with so much more we'd hoped to cut before 6:00. They were done, but Talon had been swarmed with hungry horse flies. I've never seen such horse flies away from the water and they did look awful. We quickly packed up and beat a hasty retreat, down to the spruce in the alders along the river that's in the view. I gave instructions and, when they asked for snacks because they'd left their lunches behind, I hastily made them some sandwiches (glad I'd asked my mom to spring her leftover lunchmeat) and gave them a can of pringles and fig newtons and diet root beers and bubblies for each. They said they'd get going again after eating for 15 minutes--I would come down when the saw started to show them where to go next once he cut the small spruce. My mom was washing windows and putting up screens, as the heat was making the cabin uncomfortable, and I used some duct tape to temporarily fix patches in the screens, and continued cleaning. After half an hour of no sawing sounds, I made my way down there with clippers and started clipping overhanging alders and willows along the river path near where they were lunching on the bank, hoping this would inspire them to get up, but after about ten minutes of that I finally walked over and they started work again. Talon retied my line around the tree first--I think he wound up doing that for every line we tied--taking much longer than I wanted with that one tree. Then we headed down to the landing and my mom joined us to help out. The highest priority was the tree leaning over the dock itself, which was of course the most complicated. My mom took the Kathy M out to putter while Lauren and I untied the upriver dock lines so it could swing downriver out from under the tree. After tying some complicated lines to nearby trees, Talon finally climbed up, thoroughly limbed the tree within a few feet of the top, and cut it off in several chunks. All went into the water just upriver of the dock. Initially I thought the limbs would be great to put under the landing, but it turned out to be trouble later. When he was finally done it was 5:00 and I knew we wouldn't get all the trees cut. I sent him downriver to cut the two pairs farther below the landing while I got the dock back in place so it was out from under the tree just downriver of it, then went back to watch what he was up to.
The details don't really matter and I've provided too many already. It was nearing the end of a very long and stressful day and I was disappointed that we wouldn't accomplish as much as I'd hoped. Everything seemed to take longer than it should. But the next hour was fairly productive in the end. After the downriver tree at the dock was down and my mom was back tied up, he went back downriver for one that was only barely leaning in, then upriver to the biggest tree there (the farthest upriver near the dock), which I figured was the last. It was huge, it was 6:00, and we needed to pack everything up again. While sawing continued out of sight and I waited for Lauren to come help pack their things, my mom and I loaded what we could and the Ward Air 180 flew over. It was 6:15. Of course Lauren needed to stay with Talon to look out for him and it turned out that he had also cut the four trees in the huge annoying cluster, so my work there was ultimately not for naught. Perhaps it was worth being a little late. The only trees we'd wanted cut that weren't were the several along the path upriver of the old landing. We hastened to load up and zipped down to the slough where Ed was graciously waiting for us. We reversed the process from the morning, though this time I stayed holding onto the wing of the plane (whether I needed to or not) and Lauren carried the heaviest bag through the even higher water rather than getting a piggyback. The evening was still and stunning, sun glowing on the top half of the mountains while we were in early evening shadow; everything was in sparkling clarity.
Back at the cabin we poured a little wine and sat, so stunned and exhausted by the day that we weren't even very hungry. Eventually I heated up the split pea soup I'd brought and we ate that with toasted rolls and butter, grateful to have a simple dinner. We'd imagined ourselves breaking open the champagne in celebration, but instead we just went to bed early, totally wiped out. Oh, and while we'd gone to pick them up (the second time), a bear had come up on the porch and bitten holes in the top of one of the blue water jugs, leaving a wet footprint to sign his work.
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Some time in the early morning I heard a brief but steady downpour and I officially discarded the possibility of rising early for a final morning of bird watching. Instead we slept in a little, worked on our logs a little, and then finished up some projects and packed. My mom washed dishes and installed a new hummingbird feeder pole from the upstairs porch to hopefully bear proof it (the one she installed last time had come down, possibly from bear action). I finished dusting upstairs, pulled the cots out of Alder, covered the water pump with a new tarp (one I'd brought a few years before) and then headed out and continued reclaiming the path along the waterfront and the meadow on the upriver side of the cottonwood copse, clipping back the reaching alders and willows and spruce boughs and pulling up many more little alders, and even starting to clip off blueberries so one can walk it without brushing against them. It's not finished, but it's opened back up again and another hour or so of work will probably do the trick. While I was down there I noticed that the small spruce Talon cut into the river had drifted with the current past the eroding bank at the old landing where I think we imagined it would go. That's what we get for leaving generous slack in the line; it would take a boat to pull it back up.
We visited Alder to take measurements of the broken window and make a plan for a door to the lean-to, then had quesadillas for lunch and took off for a final canoe. It was short but pleasant. We first canoed around the island, then to the new beaver lodge before trudged inland, bushwhacking more than usual as we tried a new route. We heard the Tennessee warbler again in the same spot, then crossed to the area of spruce devastation. We returned via the usual path near the property line and glided back to the landing.
We finished packing and cleaning and closing up and ate havarti-guacamole sandwiches for a quick dinner. I carried the cots and pushed a load of gear down to the dock while my mom finished the log, and then we were off shortly after 6:00. We took the meadow slowly in fear of touching bottom and the rock (or whatever we had hit in May), although the high water in the river surely eliminated the risk. The floats were about eight inches below the level of the landing when we arrived, but had soon risen to about even with them and remained there at all tidal levels all weekend (we later saw that the cfs has risen to 50,000 during this time). We did touch bottom (maybe) out in front of Taku Point and took the rest of that section slowly. I'm beginning to wonder if my inexplicable engine trouble in that same area has been the result of touching bottom without realizing it, as the silt didn't come up for the Kathy M either but it had clearly hit on the way up. We determined that closer to the glacier was the right choice in the future, on the other side of the grounded log. Once we escaped the river at Flat Point we broke out the tiny bottles of champagne and chatted our way to town, rolling over some southeasterly seas between Cooper and Salisbury, but nothing alarming. Showers were particularly welcome that night!
Intergrade yellow-rumped warbler