Beyond Ester

Elusive Moose

2012-02-05T02:11:00.000-09:00

She's lurking out there in the dark. Somewhere. I can't see her, but our two dogs know she is there. Kayt glimpsed her this morning, just for a second or two before she melted back into the woods. Her tracks are all over the yard and up and down our road. It is our Elusive Moose. All winter she has eluded us, tempting the dogs with fresh tracks in the snow to snuffle, but staying just out of view. Once she walked across the front porch just minutes between two dog potty breaks.

Tonight, the moon is nearly full, and we have six inches of fresh snow. The dogs ask to be let out, but when we go outside, they huddle next to each other, taking turns to pee. Both lift their heads and sniff the air deeply. What does a lurking moose smell like, I wonder? Borealys, more daring now than Ursa, pulls on her leash, snuffling the path leading up the hill towards the road. Suddenly I see what she does: fresh tracks, just seconds old, the edges still sharp and distinct. I hold my breath, listening as intently as I can, watching Borealys as she sniffs the air, centers and triangulates, and then raises her right foot in a point. I still can't spot the Elusive Moose, but I know she is there.

Visitors

2012-01-07T15:46:00.000-09:00

Five or six Pine Grosbeaks have graced the feeder during the last week or two. The males' bright crimson feathers provide just about the only color outside these days. The trees are draped with white, all of them drooping with the weight of the snow. The sky is a light grey, nearly white. Other visitors include a flock of 10 or more Redpolls, three Grey Jays, a single male Downy Woodpecker, a Hairy Woodpecker pair, a half dozen Boreal Chickadees, and ten or so Black Capped Chickadees. A raven swooped through the feeder area this morning, uninterested in what we have to offer, its mind on other opportunities.

I've been sleeping off a cold, sleeping 12 to 14 hours a day. I dream of flowing water, verdant green fields and woods, and warmth. Obviously not Alaska. People and animal companions long gone from my life visit me in my dreams, proving to me once again that there is a spirit world. That fact continues to elude my acceptance, although I have had so many spirit-visitors, particularly since 1990. Just this past fall, in my temporary office in the windowless sub-basement of Gruening, a spirit shared space with me. I experienced it as small, cat-size or maybe smaller. It would sprint past my right ankle, always the right ankle, just barely brushing my pants. The visits became so routine that the sensation no longer startled me. Months later I mentioned the experiences to a work colleague, who affirmed that she had once kept lab rats in that office, and that the spirit surely was that of a rat. I don't know whether to feel pity for the spirit, thinking that its life was one of torture and pain and even in death can find no release. Or perhaps I should feel elated, believing that the rat-spirit now runs its own mazes, for its own purposes, free from human intervention.

Winter Solstice 2011

2011-12-22T01:53:00.002-09:00

Borealys is stretched out on my bed, gladly sharing space with one of our elder kitties, Otto. In the past few months, Borealys has become wise. She is now the guardian of the household, the First Moose Spotter, the one who notices the slightest changes in her environment. Otto befriends anyone in the house who needs love, and recently, all of us do, so he is kept busy snuggling with first one, then the other. Ursa, old dog, beloved eldest august dog, snoozes on the horsey bed on the floor. Her bones creak, and her back legs often collapse underneath her when she is outside in the snowy cold. Still, she grins and wags, showing her yellow worn teeth, simply delighted to be on this planet with her family. Kali, oldest kitty, and Sadie, youngest kitty, sleep on opposite ends of the rug in front of the heater, their detente years old, yet still uneasy. Sunny is perched on the bathrug on the tub, his fur eternally unruly. Kayt is washing dishes, her favorite chore. She hums quietly to some tune playing in her head. From the corner desk, I survey my family on this Winter Solstice night. Everything shifts on this night. Just a few weeks ago, we were gaining seven minutes of dark every day. Now the earth stops its plunge towards the dark, hesitates. And tomorrow, we turn back towards the sun, add a few precious seconds to day.

Nearly two years stretch between tonight and my last post on Beyond Ester. So much water has passed beneath this bridge. The water sometimes roils dark and murky. Since I've last written, two old friends died by their own hand. Both our work situations are plagued with uncertainty. America's economy lurches, and our financial situation seems wedged between car repair bills and doctor bills. Our beloved truck has been parked for months, the years and miles having finally caught up with us. The heater--the new heater--is in the shop again, after three emergency repair calls in just a month.

And then there are times when the water flows clear, transparent, and oh so sweet. The unseasonably warm weather so far this winter has been a blessing for the old dog, Ursa, and me. The warm friendliness of the other musicians at the Ester Jelly Jam, the community we have helped to create sustain me from week to week. The steadiness of the music, the predictability of old time music, orders my Sundays for a sweet three hours. A baby came this fall. Holding him, feeling life surge beneath my hands refreshes my spirit. The blessing of our old dog, loyal and unswerving in her devotion to family, reaffirms my commitment to life. Otto caterwauls about a dirty catbox, and the loaner heater switches on at exactly the right moment. A neighbor stops by to chat about chickens and dogs, and gives us eggs in exchange for old fencing we no longer use. A student stops by the office to say "you changed my life." The ordinary and mundane and extraordinary and rare are equally welcome.

And so this Winter Solstice arrives and finds me both grateful for the return of the light, and yet nostalgic for the dark. I find peace, somehow, in the inherent contradictions. Blessings to all of you, blessings on your house and your families.

Arc

2010-01-08T00:12:00.002-09:00

Like any good pagan confronted with the velvety blackness of an Alaska night, I focused on the Three Sisters, the Belt of Orion. The Sisters settle themselves just to the east of the roof of our house in the early evening. I was appreciating the stark brilliance of the Sisters when a meteorite streaked across them in a short arc before flaming out into oblivion. At the time, I was thanking Goddess for my life in Alaska the day before the day before I set off to the Folk School back east. Will the people I meet there have preconceptions about my Alaska? Will they expect me to be a Palin fan, or foe? Will they understand the depth of despair I continue to feel about losing my beloved Toklas? Will other the other musicians feel moved to share their losses and joys with me, enough so that we can work with music together? More mundane questions: will I be able to keep up with the others? Am I "good" enough to play with Alan Jabbour? Will the classes be paced so that I can learn at my late middle life speed? So many questions left unanswered on this night before the night before I leave. And so the meteor is a gift, its brevity a reminder that over-thinking leaves one tired, burned out, and ultimately no further along The Path than before.

Dripping

2009-12-06T22:34:00.003-09:00

An extremely unseasonable warm spell swept over Interior Alaska these last couple of days. It's just above freezing now, and the snow is melting and sliding out of the trees and off the roof. Kayt reports that a Big Car (read: American make) was unable to make it up the hill at the top of our road. Paths, parking lots, roads, and sidewalks are slippery. We've only had one spot of extreme cold, two weeks ago, when it was 35 below. So this warm spell seems strange, out of place, and not entirely welcome. In a few weeks, we would bless this kind of warmth, but we are not yet cold weary. In fact, the warm seems a bit ominous. Especially with the Copenhagen climate summit focusing global attention on the problematics of climate change...

Tangled

2009-12-03T23:29:00.007-09:00

I am tangled by despair. Toklas has been gone for six weeks four days, and I am cast adrift. Tomorrows come and go. The sun rises for its brief sojourn across the southern horizon and then disappears, swallowed by the dark. Students complain of depression, anxiety, and I think what can you know of grief? I am swallowed by it. You, you count deaths on one hand, one finger even. Me, I count in dozens. I don't have enough fingers and toes to keep track of the beloveds who have moved beyond my reach. Mattie's Pillow offers reprieve. But playing fiddle no longer soothes. The ache is too great, the gap too wide for music to fill. Tonight, I would gladly follow Toklas, eagerly go to a place where we could sit together once more, humming together in the dark.

Owl Waltz

2009-11-28T23:53:00.006-09:00

Kayt heard the first Great Horned Owl hoot of the season this evening as she took the dogs out for a potty trip. The arrival of the first owl hoots are always a sure sign of winter here Beyond Ester. Kayt went out with me so I could hear it, and together we reveled in the sound. A friend turned me on to Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2 a couple of days ago, and even brought me sheet music. I've been learning it on the fiddle, and listened to dozens of versions on youtube today. Do you know the tune? It starts out with four oom-pahs and then a solo violin plays a plaintive, simple line for a few bars. The music suddenly bursts into a festival of harmony, then reverts back to the solo string again. As I listened to the owl hoot, plaintive and simple, I thought how perfect its call would fit into the Waltz.

In one version of the Waltz on youtube, the orchestra plays on raised stages arranged in a pinwheel into the audience. Many folks are dancing, non-dancers have linked arms and are swaying in massive waving lines. Everyone is singing dah dah dah dah, because they are part of the melody. The composer intended his audience to be participants, to be part of the music. Listening to the Great Horned Owl is like that. The owl is part of the melody of impending winter. I'm a small part, singing my line, dah dah dah dah, as the earth spins through the Long Dark towards the longest night of the year.

Our beloved 17-year old cat, Toklas, left us six weeks ago. I enter this first winter without him with sadness tinged with despair. We were each other's anchor for nearly two decades. I saved him from a nasty death when he was a baby, and he returned the favor with gracious, intelligent, vociferous affection. I find it difficult to imagine a future without him. I played the Westphalia Waltz for him over and over on his last day on the earth, and we sent him onto the next stage of his journey while singing his theme song, the Tokey Pokey.

Music soothes, music opens aches. Music sears, eases, fixes memory. Tonight, I sing my small part of the music of the universe--dah dah dah dah--knowing that the owl and Toklas sing with me. Goddess bless us all as we hum our way through the dark.

The stone owl above is one of many that lurk in a stone arch at Bryn Mawr College.

Best Cranberry Sauce Ever!

2009-11-26T22:24:00.001-09:00

Sine made the best cranberry sauce EVER for Thanksgiving dinner today! These were the last of the cranberries I had picked in September. We'd saved them for a special sauce on Thanksgiving. This sauce was certainly worth the wait! Sweet, tart, and so flavorful. Nothing is as good as Alaska cranberries saved for a special treat with Thanksgiving dinner. Wish ya'll could have been here to share in the feast, especially the wild Alaska cranberry sauce!

Toklas 1992-2009

2009-10-18T23:02:00.002-08:00

Toklas, beloved kitty, left the planet this day. He was the center of our household, the heartbeat of our hearth. He was intelligent, loving, talkative, and a bit of a bed hog. His six-year experience with diabetes meant that we structured our daily lives around him. I cannot envision a tomorrow without him. I'm sure that the sun will rise tomorrow, but I can't imagine it now. Toklas--we sang you out with your theme song. I can hardly wait until we meet again at the Rainbow Bridge. Thank you, my little orange and white furry companion, for 17 good years together.

Red ruby berries

2009-09-06T01:13:00.002-08:00

Hmmmmmm.... cannot resist those little rubies nestled among the tiny bright green leaves. They are sour, bitter, tough, and seedy. And in November, after stewing in their juices with just the right amount of raw sugar, they transform into the most delicious sauce on the planet. I am, of course, talking about Alaska homegrown wild lowbush and highbush cranberries. The season is NOW. Don't believe those who claim the berries are better after the first frost. They are just trying to get you to wait to go picking until after they have snagged all of the berries.

We went picking today. My role was to keep the dogs out of trouble, as they've been eating grass and berries and generally annoying Kayt while she picks. Kayt's role was to bring back a few berries for us. She picked over a pound of delicious, tiny little ruby fruits!! The dogs and I skipped down the path to the bottom of our property and Ursa found a wet pond puddle. Borealys was shocked to see Ursa dripping and promptly went scouting to find where she had gotten wet. She came back grinning from ear to ear and running figure eights around us in and out of the pondlet. We finished off our evening with dinner on the porch while the dogs tried to stay awake enough to pretend they were watch dogs. At the last night night potty we heard a fox sing/bark in the southwest corner of our land where it turns to tundra. The full moon has a tiny slice from its side. Still lovely and silvery white with dimples. Happy fall, everyone.

Moon hooting

2009-09-04T23:57:00.003-08:00

I know it's embarrassing, but I can't stop. I'm a moon hooter. I grew up hooting at the full moon in rural North Carolina. Hooting surges through my blood. It's in my genes. Built into my DNA. I'm a sociologist, so I don't really think these things, but I really did, honestly, grow up hooting at the moon. It's something I can't really control. When I see the full moon, especially after months of infernal light when there are no moon sightings at all, joy wells up, surges past my sense of propriety, and spurts out my throat. Really, I can't help it. It's a southern thing. My friends BeJae and Jackie admit to moon hooting. Kayt claims it scares the dogs and cats, and perhaps it does. But mostly I think she's ashamed of me, worried that the neighbors will think they let a bunch of country hick ruffian pagan moon hooters move into the neighborhood. Well, and they would be right. Early early this morning, about 4:00 AM, the puppy and I were outside for her early potty. A fox was barking from way down on the tundra below our land. Now why would a fox be barking at that time of night? The answer seems obvious to me--she was hooting at the moon. Moon hooters unite!

Farewell

2009-09-04T23:23:00.003-08:00

On Wednesday, the sandhill cranes and the Canada geese left Interior Alaska. For weeks, the fields around Fairbanks had been filled with tall, lanky cranes and squat geese gorging on greens, grain, and bugs. Creamers Field swarmed with birds--ducks, geese, swans, cranes. We humans watched as entire fields of birds wheeled overhead, circling and calling, exercising their wings.

MP at Mattie's Pillow speculated that the birds were calling to each other in confusion--"which way? I thought you knew!" But I think the birds are saying something different: "Hey, this feels great! You're doing good! That's the way to do it! It's a long way South! Let's get going!" The skies have been filled with cacophony for days--sqawks, honks, calls, trumpets. Dozens of clumps of birds, heavy and awkward on the ground, but graceful in flight. And then, suddenly, sometime around noon on Wednesday, the skies fell silent. We went outside to notice the quiet. Nothing on the horizon but blue skies and lumpy clouds. Farewell, birds! See you this spring! Fly safe, be well, and come back to us.

Just passing through

2009-08-29T23:11:00.002-08:00

A handful of Wilson's Warblers visited Beyond Ester last weekend. They were only here for a day, apparently just passing through on their way south. We read in one of our bird books that they often flock by the dozens with other migrating birds. We first noticed that we had new visitors when one by one, the raspberries in the yard waved furiously. Then we saw the brilliant flash of yellow and realized that we had never seen these birds before! The WWs were busy snatching bites of the raspberries, which have dried on the stalks. The bird book says they also enjoy insects, so perhaps our strikingly yellow visitors were grabbing some protein along with their fruit. We spotted both males and females--the males with their perky black cap, and the females more subtle with their streaked olive feathers.

Foxtail warning

2009-08-18T23:24:00.002-08:00

Dog lovers, beware!! It's foxtail season. A beautiful grass, foxtails are extremely dangerous to dogs and other animals. Our beloved elder dog, Ursa, occasionally has a bad habit of eating grass. While Kayt was in Madison, WI, for the Rural Sociological Society, Ursa started coughing and gagging. She drank bowl after bowl of water, seemingly trying to dislodge something from her throat. After watching her struggle, I took her to the emergency vet in town. I was so relieved to see Dr. Pinto, one of our most trusted docs, was on duty that night. The emergency vet often seems like rolling chaos to me, and this night was no different. Dr. Pinto, though, like the other vets and techs who work at the clinic, is always calm and steadfast in the face of the revolving crises, deaths, and high emotion. After she examined Ursa, Dr. Pinto suspected foxtails. She sedated Ursa and removed about a dozen pieces of foxtails that had lodged in her tonsils. About two hours later, the tech helped me load a heavily sedated and woozy Ursa into the car and I drove home. Somewhere along the way home, I passed a porcupine and the feeling of panic and disorientation overwhelmed me. How was I going to manage Ursa alone?? She weighs 76 pounds, and I felt every ounce as I picked her up from the car seat and set her on the ground at home. Her legs immediately went limp and she fell to the ground. But she's very brave, and with me holding her up, she peed and let me carry her into the house. She slept through the night, but I don't think I slept a wink. The next morning she was woozy and exhausted, but hungry for her breakfast. A week later, most of the inflammation appeared to be gone and she was back to normal. But please--let our horrible experience prevent your own dog from exposure to foxtails! Cut them down in the spring as soon as you recognize them. Ruthlessly exterminate them from your yard. Pull them, mow them, dig them up. Whatever you have to do to eliminate them from your environment, do it.

Boring

2009-06-04T00:59:00.003-08:00

Yawn.

Another earthquake. Part of the continuing Ester Swarm. I'm over it. Time to move on, Mama Nature. I don't recall the name of the Earthquake Goddess, and maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe we need to make some kind of pact with Her, like remembering Her Name and placating Her with wine or berries or blood sacrifices or something. I'll say it here: Hey, Earthquake Goddess! Name Your terms. What will it take to get You to stop rattling us here Beyond Ester?

The graphic above places the latest Ester earthquake on the world map. Note the red blocks are earthquakes that happened within the last hour. Note also how they cluster in Alaska, and tumble on top of each other in the area Beyond Ester.

Thanks, as always, to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center. You guys rock. Sorry, I couldn't help it :)

Thrill

2009-05-31T22:22:00.002-08:00

"The thrill is gone, baby. The thrill is gone away. Oh yeah, the thrill is gone, baby."

Another earthquake. This one is the largest yet. I was actually online reading about yesterday's earthquake when this one hit. Kayt was out walking the dogs and said that she felt like she was being shaken from above. Like the others, this one is centered only a couple of miles from our house. Three of the cats scrambled and stumbled over each other trying to run upstairs to hide. Sadie is still missing, but Kayt reports a pair of wide eyes under the bed that might belong to her. The thrill is definitely over, and the tremors can stop now.

Read about the latest on the Fairbanks News-Miner here:
http://newsminer.com/news/2009/jun/01/another-earthquake-rocks-fairbanks/

She's got personality

2009-05-30T11:52:00.004-08:00

A swarm of earthquakes have rattled us here Beyond Ester. On the map, you can see the dozens that have hit Alaska in the last 24 hours. The red ones are less than an hour old, the orange ones are 1-12 hours old, the yellow ones are up to 23 hours old, and the white ones occurred within the last day. You will note the cluster of red and orange in the middle, which is approximately where Beyond Ester is located. Two in the 3.5+ range last night, two more at 6:00AM this morning, several small ones since then. Kayt suggested that the one last night at 9:00PM felt like someone shaking the house from the top. The one at 6:00 AM creaked the logs, but the ones at 7:30AM just felt like we were swaying. Each quake has its own personality. All of these recent ones are centered near Ester.
Here's a Fairbanks News-Miner article about the quakes. Like some of the posters on this article, these quakes are getting a bit freaky in their frequency. I told Kayt last night that I've had my big earthquake adventure in Alaska and that I don't need to experience any more.
Here is a link to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center (AEIC)--one day when you're looking for something to jiggle you out of complacency, do some serious cruising of their site.
Thanks to the AEIC for their constant monitoring and automatic data generation, as well as for the map above.

I feel the earth move under my feet

2009-05-23T12:18:00.004-08:00

Wow. Not the Big One, but the Close One! An 3.8 earthquake woke us all up here Beyond Ester in the middle of the night. The Alaska Earthquake Information Center notes that the quake's epicenter is 4 miles south of Ester. (Click on the map for an enlarged version) That's where we live. Everyone at our house woke up. The dogs barked their furious moose alert bark, thinking that there was a moose stomping on the deck. Kayt said she thought the cats were shaking the bed. I thought a grader had taken a wrong turn and was in our driveway headed for the house. We also heard it--a rumbly buzzy sound. Always interesting, living in Alaska!
Thanks to the UAF Geophysical Institute for the map.

Bird tragedy?

2009-05-02T22:09:00.003-08:00

Thunk!!

I knew what had happened without even rising from the couch. A large bird had crashed into our window. Kayt looked out, and spotted a male Hairy Woodpecker on a tree near the window. She heaved a sigh of relief. "It's alright," she said. I got up from the couch. "No, it's not," I responded, looking at the ground just under the window. "Oh no," Kayt breathed with alarm. There lay a dazed female Hairy Woodpecker, her neck stretched out in the wet, melting, icy grass. She breathed heavily and unevenly, her head askew, eyes closed. Her breathing turned to shudders that made her feathers twitch. I turned away, couldn't watch the inevitable end, though I prayed to the Goddess for mercy for the suffering bird.

Kayt went out, against my vociferous objections, and moved the bird out from under the dripping roofline. She reported that the bird looked up at her, and attempted to move away from her as she approached. The bird's mate, she said, was very upset, and remained vigilantly on the tree nearby chirping its fear and alarm incessantly. I could not watch nor listen, but instead retreated under my covers on the couch to cry for the pretty bird whose life was seeping into the snow melt under our window.

An hour later, the injured bird was gone. Vanished. Kayt understood the vanishing as the bird getting its head together and flying off into the sunset with its obviously upset mate. I understood the disappearance as a fox sent by The Divine to end the woodpecker's misery.

As it turns out, Kayt was right. Or maybe I was, too, at least in my pleading for Divine Intervention. In any case, the next day, we saw both Hairy Woodpeckers feeding on the suet. We only had one pair of Hairys, so we are certain that the female is the same individual who had seemed to be so critically injured.

Our wilderness and wild creatures are resilient. But to prevent future incidents, we installed fake spiderwebs on the windows near the bird feeders. The spiderwebs have stabilia--those solid parts of the web in the center. Some scientists think that stabilia have evolved over the millenia to prevent birds from crashing into spider webs. We'll see if the static cling variety works. Meanwhile, I sent a prayer of thanks to the Bird Goddess who intervened for our lovely female Hairy Woodpecker.

Image above: Neolithic Bird Goddess, 5900-5800 BCE eclipse.rutgers.edu/goose/about/appendix_b.aspx

Melting

2009-04-23T23:24:00.003-08:00

The land has turned into a giant sponge. We still have about two feet of snow, but it's melting quickly and the ice trails are collapsing. The greenhouse is flooded with four inches of water that is seeping in as the snow outside melts. We have tiny lettuces in the beds, and flats full of broccoli, cabbages, cauliflower, all the usual cole crop suspects. Creasy greens about to come up. I wonder if we are the first to grow creasies in Alaska. Ever had creasies? They grew wild at Bold Moon in North Carolina. We'd mow the patch every fall, and the seeds would lay dormant all winter under their nice warm mulch. Early spring, those beautiful heart-shaped leaves would form in rosettes and we'd pick tendrils. Even now, my mouth waters for a good mess of creasies. Steamed just lightly with a splash of vinegar and a dash of pepper. Yum.

But this is Alaska, and even things like creasies must be grown inside, with special insulation, heat, and beds raised from the snow melt. >sigh< Soon we will be feasting on the six kinds of lettuce planted in the greenhouse, and musing about this past winter, swapping "it was so cold that..." stories.

At least one more major earthquake this April--in this one, the floor rumbled, but Kali didn't awaken. Kayt was gone again--down to San Diego for a conference. She has missed both of the good earthquakes this year! Doh!

Only a handful of redpolls left at the feeder. A mated pair of Hairy Woodpeckers, and also a pair of Downy Woodpeckers. Yesterday, a job candidate and I spotted what I think was a Sharp-Shinned Hawk wheeling over the baby reindeer patch at the U. And, of course, the Canada Geese arrived last week at Creamer's Field. I was there the first day, and saw eight. This weekend Kayt counted several dozen. Life is good, spring is here.

In the pix above, Kayt, with Ursa's help, dug out the snow where she built our greenhouse in April 2006.

Redpoll migration

2009-03-28T15:23:00.002-08:00

Yesterday, there were 100+/- redpolls in our yard feasting on seeds. The trees were full of trills and chirps, and the air swarmed with birds dashing to and from the feeders to the ground to the trees to the feeders again. We have had to fill the bird feeders twice a day for about two weeks. Every day we seem to have had more redpolls. Now, the feeder is empty except for a couple of chickadees and less than a dozen redpolls. There are about 40 redpolls that have been hanging out at various times today, but the huge flock that was here yesterday has vanished. Could it really be time for them to leave?

Rumble Creak

2009-03-17T19:20:00.004-08:00

Last night we had an earthquake somewhere beyond Beyond Ester. In the past, I have experienced earthquakes as the ground or building swaying, sometimes a shudder that seems to emanate from underneath. But last night, the symptom was a sudden craaaccckk from the logs in the house. Earlier, it had been very windy, so when I heard the logs cracking and creaking, I took the dogs out to determine if we needed to evacuate the house, gather kitties, and head to a storm shelter. After eight years in Iowa, one of my first reactions to strange surging sounds is to find a solid shelter. But when the dogs and I opened the door to the outside, all was silent. No fiercely clanging windchimes, no madly swaying birch trees. We came back into the house, and I noticed that my alarm clock had tipped over. Some of the dishes had slid in the cabinets. Kali, the complacent and usually oblivious elder cat, was sitting up, her eyes wide. Ahhhhh... an earthquake, I thought. This morning, I mentioned my experience to my co-worker, who directed me to UAF's Geophysical Institute earthquakes info page. What a wealth of information! It looks like the earthquake we experienced was about 150 miles south of Beyond Ester. I'm curious about how the shock waves travel... do they emanate through rock like water waves? Or more like sound waves traveling through the air? Regardless, it was an interesting experience, but not one that I need to replay. Visit the Geophysical Institute to read stats on the Beyond Beyond Ester Earthquake here: http://www.aeic.alaska.edu/Seis/recent/sub/quakes/2009076_evid96061/evid96061.html This is also the site where I got the cool map, above. Thanks, GI!

Curious chickadee

2009-03-15T22:05:00.009-08:00

We have a most curious looking Black-Capped Chickadee. It's got a deformed beak. Its beak is very long and curves down in a graceful arc. Before any of you soft-hearted folks like me start wailing and gnashing your teeth, let me assure you that it seems to be doing just fine. This chickadee has been a regular visitor to our feeding station all winter, and it survived the unusually extended cold, the -50s, the wild winds, and all of the other... >cough cough<... interesting weather events this year. I have watched it pick up seeds on the ground, and also watched it pick seeds out of the seed hopper. Two days ago, I shoveled snow off the deck and it came and watched me work for several minutes. It hopped along the logs and seemed to be hunting for bugs. Our neighbor, the ornithologist, says that there are several reports of chickadees in the area with deformed beaks. Actually, I have seen this chickadee so many times and have so many photos of it, that I suspect there are more than one. Could be several who are regular feeder visitors, which is why I have so many sightings.

We have over 4 dozen Redpolls, both Common and Hoary, a Hairy Woodpecker pair, a female and male Downy Woodpecker who may or may not be a mated pair, one Boreal Chickadee, and three Grey Jays who are regular feeder visitors. We installed a new tray feeder this week, along with the suet and the mixed feed hopper and the sunflower feeder. The tray hopper was an immediate success, especially with the Hairy Woodpeckers and the Redpolls. One Red Squirrel visits, who seems to nest west of the house somewhere in the woods. We don't have any house nesters this year, thanks, I suspect, to the efforts of foxes and the ever butch Borealys.

One more interesting noteworthy ornithological event... After I shoveled the deck two days ago, I was pooped. There was four feet of snow to shovel, and I've been rather sedentary this winter, so after I scooped all but the last 1/2 inch of ice off the deck, I collapsed in a chair next to the wall and basked in the sun. I was in heaven. It was warm and bright, in the 20s, and the sun reflecting off the wall of the house and the snow felt glorious. All of a sudden, 14 Redpolls swarmed down and surrounded me! I did not dare move, and I watched them out of the corner of my eyes. They were pecking tiny bits of ice, probably October's sleet storm, gobbling them greedily. One was so close to me, I measured about 4 feet away from me, and pecking ever closer and closer. Then I glanced down and saw that two of them were under my legs! They were just inches from my body, and were happily snatching up tiny ice balls. Even when I shifted my legs a bit, causing them to fly away, the entire flock returned in seconds to continue to peck and munch. I felt like I had melded into the Alaska wilderness and was just part of the background for the birds. I used their enjoyment of the tiny ice balls to call it quits on shoveling the deck. After all, I had uncovered a layer of October sleet that they really appreciated. Who am I, a mere mortal, to deny these lovely birds what they want? :)

Great balls of fire!

2009-03-10T18:26:00.003-08:00

Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire! We had quite the sighting last night here Beyond Ester. About midnight, the dogs and I were outside for our night-night potty. A flash caught my eye, and I turned to the east just in time to see a huge electric blue meteor streak down. The ball itself was preceded by two streaks that seemed connected to the meteor like legs. It was electric blue, neon blue, pure crystalline warm current Pacific Ocean water blue. For quite a few seconds I wondered if the Martians had landed. After I reported to Kayt, who had been asleep but had to be woken up for the occasion, the dogs and I walked towards where I had seen it. I half expected to see a smoking spaceship crashed at the old Chandler homestead. First thing this morning, I emailed a reporter at the local newspaper to ask if anyone else had reported seeing the meteor. As my extremely excellent fortune would have it, the reporter had also seen it! It was an amazing and thrilling sighting. I will never forget it. The dogs, by the way, were unimpressed.

Meteor Mark of meteorblog.com reports that we are in the midst of a very minor meteor shower, the y-Normids, that will peak about March 13.

Midnight moonlight

2009-03-08T00:03:00.004-09:00

Midnight in March, just two or three days from the full moon. The last full moon we can appreciate in Alaska until September arrives. In April, the days are so bright and long that the moonlight dissipates, disappears in the eternal twilight. But tonight, I have tonight. We got about 20 inches of new snow this past week. The biggest snowstorm since 1970 has just left us with huge quilts of puffy smooth snow. The wind blew for a full day, lifting and piling the snow into berms as tall as houses. There are curves sculpted in the yard, against the house, adorning the edges of the woods. The snow in the woods is deeper than the dogs, so they stick to the trails and paths they have already worn. Without snowshoes, the snow comes to my waist, so I too, stay on the trails to feed the birds, potty the dogs. Even with this latest snow, we know spring is near. There are unmistakable signs that even the blizzard cannot hide. Three dozen redpolls at the feeder. Daylight at 7:00 PM even during the storm. The heaviness of the snow, the size of the flakes, as large as coins and nearly as weighty.

This night, the first clear night in a week, Orion stalks our southern sky. The Three Sisters clutch at the spruce trees as they spin overhead. Polaris dips below the birches in the north, the Big Dipper wheels a full circle, dumping out its milky contents onto the universe at near morning. I startle awake as if something cold splashed on my face. Just the puppy, nudging me to take her out for an early morning potty. The bird feeder is empty; in the half twilight, I fill it, and sleepy chirps surround me. The puppy and I stumble back to our bed, snooze for another three hours until Kayt wakes. Spring may not be here yet, but the shift is apparent. The snow has stopped falling, and the moon casts purple shadows across the drifts, the steep valleys, the sharp clefts, the sudden and shocking rises where yesterday there was smooth plain. I dreamed about Ben and Jay and all the good young men we love in their shirt sleeves building stout cabins on our land. Life is good.

Snowy birds

2009-02-28T11:39:00.007-09:00

Snow has been falling steadily for about sixteen hours. Whirls of fat flakes, then scatters of tiny ones. We have about twelve inches of new snow. The birds have crowded around the feeder since dawn. There are more than two dozen birds around the feeder at any given moment. Red Polls, Black Capped Chickadees, Boreal Chickadees, Gray Jays, a male Hairy Woodpecker and female Downy Woodpecker are today's visitors. The woods around the cabin are alive with tweets and trills and shadowy flits. On Monday I put a new suet cake out, and by this morning, it was all gone. The suet is the woodpeckers' favorite, although the other birds snack on it also.

Last night the Great Horned Owl graced our woods with hoots. Not as close to the house as the night it continually spooked Borealys, but still close enough to appreciate the neck-hair raising effects of the sounds bouncing off the trees. This one was the one with the sonorous voice.

This afternoon I got the bright idea of playing in the snow with the dogs. They thought it was great fun, and so did I. Until, that is, I stepped off the path. The snow comes up to my butt, and I promptly lost my boot in the snow. I came limping back to the house with only one boot, wounded pride, and a very cold and snowy bottom half. At one point, Ursa plunged off the path and was completely covered with snow. Our next trip out into the yard will be on snowshoes.

Borealys the Spooky

2009-02-25T23:01:00.005-09:00

A dark night, just a few hours past the new moon, and a Great Horned Owl is hooting up a storm. I think it is perched on a snag just east of our cabin. The hooting makes Borealys nervous. She can't potty. She squats to pee, and then the owl hoots. She stands up, her ears on full alert. I assure her that all is fine, just an owl sweetheart, just an owl. She relaxes, squats again, and the owl hoots. Up goes her butt, her ears, and her ridge fur. She is truly spooked.

I wonder if she remembers the days when she was a new puppy, a tiny thing, hardly larger than a teacup. I like to claim that Kayt held her first, fell in love with her first. But that's not really true. Kayt and I had gone to the transfer station to dump a load of trash. There was a woman there, a young mother with a toddler fidgeting in the car, a basket of brown and black wiggles setting on the hood of the car. I wandered over as Kayt unloaded the trash from our truck. Whatcha got there, I asked. Puppies, she said. So cute, I said. I picked up the first one I saw, a brown slip of a thing. A tiny girl, four weeks old, who yawned puppy breath. Who among us isn't a fool for puppy breath? A curious combination of urine, milk, and some kind of strange chemical that draws us to cuddle, to fawn, to stroke, to say to a woman with a toddler and a basket of puppies, this one has a home.

I handed the tiny brown furball to Kayt, and any chance that this puppy would not come home with us melted away.

When she was a tiny puppy, we worried that Borealys would be snatched by an owl, a hawk, eagle. She was so small, so vulnerable. As we walked, we scoured the skies and the woods for danger. We saw lynx scat at Owl Cabin, and Tim saw the lynx one night when he let his dog out. We increased our vigilance. The puppy, everything revolved around the puppy.

Now, suddenly, she is two years old and big and strong. Yet spooked by owl hoots. She's always been a spooky puppy, intense, anxious about odd things. The leash. The car. The bed. The stairs. Floors without rugs. The dark. We have worked past most of her fears, but the owl hoots in the dark, this is something we are just now facing. This strange new danger. Has she internalized our old fears about owls snatching her up? Can she feel my own anxiety after losing a cat to a Great Horned Owl nearly three decades ago? Does she recall her puppy past, when she would have been a mere snack for an owl? Is the Owl Spirit stalking her?

I feel sympathy for Borealys' worries and fears. I, myself, struggle with my fear of the dark--an inconvenient fear here in the Northland, when our entire world is plunged into darkness for nearly half a year. Borealys and I are back inside now, after several anxious, potty-less visits outside. She hovers beneath my legs, her eyes black and staring out the window, her ears perched nearly on top of her head. She nudges my elbow urgently, whining. Clearly, she needs to potty. In a minute or two we will go outside and try again. Together, this beloved brown puppydog and I will face our fears of the dark, of the Owl, together.

Bull Duo

2009-02-22T11:27:00.003-09:00

Sometimes Kayt and I get moose vibes. Last night, Kayt took the dogs out for their night-night potty, and I heard/felt a noise just next to the window where I was working. I looked out, saw nothing, but felt enough moose vibe to get Kayt and the dogs to come back in asap. We looked out the back, and there were fresh tracks, but no moose to be seen. And certainly there was no moose next to the window where I was working.

Kayt woke up this morning, yawning and stretching and saying she was dreaming that there was a moose in the yard. She looked out the kitchen window and saw two gorgeous bulls browsing in the garden. Both were missing their antlers (which they typically shed this time of year), but their heads were so massive that they were unmistakenly males. By the time MamaKayt got Borys on her leash, the moose had vanished. Melted back into the woods. We have noticed that the bulls are much more skittish than the cows. Now, if the visitors had been a cow with her calf, they probably would have stuck around, with the cow occassionally glaring Kayt's direction. But the bulls simply vanished. We call such vanishing acts levitation.

What a treat to see such beautiful bulls, on this beautiful sunshiny day.

Happy hoots

2009-02-16T15:31:00.003-09:00

We're feeling a bit euphoric here Beyond Ester. Last night about ten o'clock, we heard a pair of Great Horned Owls! We are so happy to hear them! The young dog, Borealys, did not know what to make of the hoots that seemed to emanate just from the edge of the yard. Ursa, our elder dog, seemed to know that we were hearing echoes among the trees and the hills, and that's why owls seemed to be everywhere. The pair was down in the valley, to the southwest of our cabin, where the land flattens out to tundra and stubby, sporadic black spruce. They overtalked each other--a much higher and sloppier hoot overlaying a lower, carefully orchestrated one. A younger owl, perhaps, just learning its language? An eager mate, urging let's get it on? Did the thrill of above-zero weather and the inevitable approach of spring shape their hoots? Or the excitement of the hunt, perhaps. There's a vole! And another one! Forget the voles! Look, there's an Arctic Hare! Who hoo HOO hoo hoo! Who hoo hoo hoo hoo! Welcome back, owls!

Missing

2009-02-11T15:00:00.004-09:00

The Great Horned Owls are missing this year. Every year here at Beyond Ester we hear a pair calling to each other. The hoots start up in January, and are a constant presence in the evenings. During the last couple of years, one hooted from a snag to the north of our cabin, and its mate echoed back from somewhere south of our cabin, down towards the valley.

The Boreal Owls are also missing. Their mournful descending calls have always trembled through our woods and across our valley.

This year, only silence. Monday's full moon was a lonely and quiet night without owls to hoot and to call.

Great Grey Owl--a simple gift

2009-01-25T17:23:00.005-09:00

A Great Grey Owl hunted in our yard last week. It spun its head around and around looking for voles. At one point, it peered intently into the camera, then focused beyond it, listening and looking for dinner. The owl's unperturbedness at being watched and filmed was a simple gift to us on this winter day. Kayt and The Plumber first spotted our owl visitor.

Chinook

2009-01-15T01:14:00.003-09:00

A Chinook is sweeping over Interior Alaska tonight. Last week this time, it was -45 and tonight at our home on the edge of the Alaska wilderness it is 35. The wind smells like seashells and turquoise water. The dogs and their people are crazed with the sudden warmth. Kayt spent the day under the house with The Plumber, Saint Plumber, come to fix our pipes. He ended up breaking the connection so now we went from having little water to having none. But we are entranced with The Plumber, and we are used to coping with no water, so life is still Good. A little wearing, perhaps, but good nonetheless.

Kayt continues to work on her article for the Hawaii conference, and that alone spurs us to dream of warmth, of turquoise waters, of Chinooks... The snow underfoot tonight collapses into ice beneath our heels. All of us potty outside, given that we have no water inside. The warm wind shivers the spruce, tickles the wind chimes. Kayt noticed the ice shine on the birches earlier in the evening, but even the ice is gone now with the Chinook. An entity, like the cold, this mysterious Chinook who has come to bless us with Her warm breath.

Celebrating

2009-01-13T02:03:00.004-09:00

So how do we celebrate when the temp swells to a balmy -2 degrees after three weeks of -40s? Why, chocolate cookies with macadamian nuts, of course. The dogs get peanut-butter flavored low-fat small dog treats, but the People get real treats. I took a walk with the dogs to Wilson's Corner this AM, just before the snowfall, when the temp was rising a degree an hour. It was -20 when we left home this morning, and it was deliciously near zero when we got home. Toklas spent the day at the vet's because of a yeast infection in one ear. Poor boy, that's why he's been crying at night. That and high blood sugar. A moose in our yard has been providing the dogs good snuffleuffugus opportunities. Little else to report, except that it raised an entire degree while I was typing this! I'm looking for my cut-off jeans now so I'll be ready tomorrow AM.

Wicked cold continues

2009-01-11T02:17:00.006-09:00

Still locked in a world of cold. For the last three weeks, we have celebrated anytime the temperature raises into the minus 30s. Our pump froze yesterday--or something down there broke or froze or cracked. Kayt, the brave one in our family, put a heater down there. This requires pulling up a trap door and climbing down into a crawlspace that is literally that: a crawlspace. She returned with her face ashen and with stories of ice bergs and glaciers on the pipes and walls and ground. I can't bring myself to go down there for several reasons. First, I don't know what I would be looking at. Second, I'm afraid of spiders. Third, it's cold there. Fourth, dark. Fifth, it's now very icy, and where it's not icy, it's wet. Sixth, I don't know nothing about no plumbing. Except that it's broke. We are trying to find a plumber courageous enough to take on our plumbing project. The previous owner plumbed the place himself. Bad idea. The parts are gas fittings, not water fittings, and is plumbed conventionally, and not for Alaska. Except that the plumbing is really not conventional because the guy didn't do it right. Our plumbing has been nothing but bad news since the day we moved in. That was six years ago, and of course, nothing has improved. We had a serious conversation this evening about how much will it take before we decide to move to town. I'm dreaming about a nice 2BR condo, but Kayt thinks we can make do here. Meanwhile, the plumbing fiasco is so upsetting because neither of us know what to do about it. Except wait for Monday and then start pleading with a plumbing company to please come fix it.

Fox visited our feeder today!

2009-01-08T22:38:00.004-09:00

A beautiful bushy tailed fox was out feeding under our bird feeder this morning. It seems to love the bird seeds that the birds pull out and drop below the feeders. We think the birds are trying to find just the right morsel. The chickadees are especially inclined to pull lots of seeds out before they find just what they want. Sine and I are the only ones who saw the fox and enjoyed its visit. The dogs slept through it. A group of Red Polls were out feeding at the feeders today too, as well as the woodpecker who is a constant visitor, and the ever present chickadees. We went to work soon after the fox left, so don't know who else might have visited today.

This evening the moon was 95% full, and was beautiful and bright for my walk with the dogs this evening. The sky was so dark and the moon was so bright. It was quite a wonderous walk! Time for a night night potty for Borealys, so I'd better end this post :-)

Unpacking

2009-01-07T22:21:00.003-09:00

On our porch are the stacks of boxes I hauled from North Carolina this summer in a U-Haul. What does one do with such things? I have old reel-to-reel family films from the 1950s. Boxes of old photos of my mother and my father when they were young and beautiful and so in love. Pictures of my mother in her 20s when she dyed her hair red and wore high heels and flirted with the young male photographer who was her husband at the time. Photos of my sister, cute, the darling of my family. Pictures of me, big feet, big teeth, big hands. Big black plastic bags enclosing my father's paintings, memories of his Wisconsin and Danish childhoods. Twenty five years of my own drawings, sketches, finished pen and inks, oil paintings. Boxes of mismatched cutlery, a gas stove, my mother's tool box. My chainsaw from home, the one that nearly cut off Lisa's leg and which still has dried blood clinging to the bar. Old Christmas decorations from my mother's house, her unfinished crismons. Scarred furniture from my Bold Moon home, some cheap and scavenged from the local Goodwill store, some handmade and handsome. A box of letters my sister and I wrote to our parents in the 1960s when we were sent away to boarding school. My mother's sewing machine, the world map with pins placed on all of the places that she visited in her life. A tall box with pots and pans, no lids, as my sister somehow ended up with a box of lids, but no pots. A wooden trunk, which I don't remember owning, but which somehow ended up at Bold Moon in the 1990s. Daddy's desk, bought secondhand from one of the old textile mills in North Carolina, which served as his first desk at his own business, then was a secretary's desk, then mine since 1976. Daddy's drawing table, the chair where he sat for hours and hours and hours as he painted and drew and wrote as a way to escape my mother, his wife, his life with her. The table is dismembered, parts here and there, the chair too high for my taste. Three books of my typed poetry from high school; chronicles of my first loves and first heartbreaks. Boxes of my dishes from Bold Moon, one-of-a-kind flowered plates collected since 1975, three of them from Hong Kong. Somewhere among the boxes, a handwritten draft of my father's last life project: a history of Western Europe as told from his own 89-year old eyes.

What does one do with these things from our past? The boxes nestle under blue tarps, and I notice that at least one has squirrel prints on it. Do we leave them out on the porch until things rot, moulder, become dusty, squirrel-eaten, their stuffings and edges scavenged by mice? Do we unpack them, integrate them into our contemporary lives, ignore the moth-bitteness, the flyspots, the musky scent of the past clinging to them? What do our current lovers think of these boxes that document past passions, spent exuberance, that smell of despair and bitterness? And what about the things that somehow got left behind? There are two family genealogies, a file about the origins of Bold Moon, a hundred LPs of the very first women's music, the Second Wave. The arrowhead and stone chip and stone ax I found at Bold Moon, the ones that the land called out to me to find. The photo of my great grandmother, my namesake. I once did ritual with this photo, on a lonely winter solstice in 1992, when I looked long and deep at the photo and thought I saw my own image in this long dead ancestor. But she is not among the boxes on the porch.

Good friends, good lovers, good companion animals have left our planet and continued on their journey. Should I send these things, these old things on their journey, too? I am tempted to build a winter bonfire, to heap the desk, the photos, the drawing table, the paintings, the things hauled up the Alaska Highway onto the blaze. To sit back and to relish my current life and to watch my past, my parents' past, my Bold Moon past, go up in smoke.

Cold snap

2009-01-07T22:06:00.004-09:00

It's been a mournful cold here. A gruesome cold. The cold is an entity, and it hunts you down, snags you at the knees. Touching metal, like doorknobs or the car handle is like touching fire. In town, the ice fog is as thick as pea soup, turning everything reddish gray. Lights are distorted, cars seem further away then they are in reality. I saw -62 at Fred's on Saturday, and it was -58 on our west thermometer. The house collapses in on itself, walls withdrawing into their centers, their ends shrinking from each other. The result: drafts. Cruel, unseen shards of coldness sneaking across the floors to meet each other and create rivers of chill across our ankles. At one point, the warmest part of our house--the heater--was only 51. Of course, that's 51 ABOVE zero, so life is good. Well, life is tolerable. I went to the store to buy down quilts and comforters for our household, and ran into friends who crowed about their warm house. Kayt and I swore a solemn oath to each other that this spring we will complete the weatherization on our house. This time we mean it. Seriously. Really, we do. No kidding. Meanwhile, we are making do with blankets covering the windows, duct tape and foam on the leaky door, and quilts. Lots and lots of quilts.

Meteor Sighting Tonight!

2009-01-03T23:51:00.005-09:00

An exciting meteor sighting tonight! We'd gone out to take the dogs out to go potty and I was focusing on the sky to see if the moon was where our night sky site says it should be when I saw an impressive meteor streak across the sky near the moon. Sine said that she'd seen that the Quadrantids meteor shower was going to be happening tonight. I got to see at least one meteor shower down. Check out this site for information about the Quadrantids meteor shower and for a great picture of the Quadrantids last year way up North here with the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights). No Northern Lights tonight. The meteor I saw sure was huge though. Not just a little streak but a big ball with lots of sparks trailing!

Check out the sky above our place

2009-01-03T12:39:00.010-09:00

This time of year it is dark most of the time (but the light is on its way back)! Check out the image below to see what the sky looks like over our place right now. If the sky color is light blue we have daylight. If the sky color is dark, it is dark overhead at our place and the stars and planets are in the locations where we are currently seeing them over our heads. Click on the image to open up the site that feeds these images. If it is dark here in AK you will even be able to see stick figures of the constellations on the larger image on the technetium astronomy site.

Borys back injury

2009-01-02T03:12:00.003-09:00

Early afternoon, Borealys starting complaining. We could not tell what her issue was, but we suspected a back injury, impacted anal glands, or sprained tail. Best MamaKayt took her to the emergency vet clinic where Our Baby was diagnosed with a back injury. I'm feeling pretty bad because I suspect I am at fault. Earlier today, I made her and Ursa put on their coats to brave the cold weather. Bory's coat is a nice red fleece, but both front feet have to be put into the coat, and then the back is velcro. I'm sure that I caused the injury, and I feel so badly. But enough guilt. Kayt brought home rimadyl, and instructions to put ice on Borys's back. Have you ever tried to apply ice to a dog's back?? Needless to say, it didn't go well. But Borealys is sleeping now, resting better, not whining. We're hoping she will heal quickly.

New Year moose

2009-01-01T00:58:00.004-09:00

New Year's eve, January 1, 2009
I took Borealys out to potty, which is so often a great time for wildlife experiences. Just as she squatted, a moose started bawling in the woods just west of the house! Kayt and I had heard three gun shots earlier today, and so we started worrying that the bawling was an abandoned calf whose mother was killed. May or may not be the story. I looked up moose in one of our field guides, and it said that although bulls call during rutting season, cows may "grunt" anytime to call their calf. This sound was not a "grunt", though. It was a bawl, just like the way that cow cows (the dairy/beef kind of cow) sound down south. We decided to believe that the moose was not bereaved, that it was just saying, "it's cold out here!!!" It is -48 on the thermometer on the west house post, way cold enough for this New Year's Eve. We have 3 minutes and 22 seconds more daylight today than yesterday. Last night, an unexpected aurora borealis. Life is good.

Solstice Blessings

2008-12-20T09:56:00.000-09:00

Greetings friends! Happy Solstice to you all! The sun returns! Please click on the link to the video below for our Solstice greeting to you. This is a QuickTime video featuring scenes from our home Beyond Ester. The music is "In the dark midwinter", a traditional tune played by Sine on her new fiddle.

With great fondness to you all, Sine, Kayt, and family.

Wildlife sightings 2008

2008-12-19T22:20:00.003-09:00

February 19, 2008
As we were driving home this week, early one evening when it was twilight, a boreal owl swooped in front of our car on Old Nenana, near the top of Old Ridge Trail. Later that evening, we heard a Boreal Owl way off in the distance, and wondered if it was “our” owl.

February 23, 2008
The Redpolls are baaccck! Seems to be about 8-12 out there under and on the feeder. Lots of boreal and black-capped chickadees. All winter, we have had a Hairy Woodpecker pair, and perhaps two males. A Downey Woodpecker male, also, and perhaps a female. We put up a woodpecker nest box and a chickadee nest box this fall. We’ll be watching them! Last night, Sine took the dogs out in the middle of the night and heard a Great Horned Owl hooting way off. A few weeks ago, Kayt heard a pair of them calling, and one was really close—she thinks maybe at Owl Cabin. Haven’t seen the fox in several weeks, maybe several months. Our new neighbors up the road say they have a pair, so perhaps that is where our fox went. Kayt had pointed our Pine Grosbeaks—maybe two males and one female—last weekend.

March 1, 2008
On Old Nenana, just at the foot of the hill where we saw the wolf four years ago, a pure white arctic hare charged towards us, and then changed her mind and returned to the woods. Pure white! Could only tell what it was when it was moving.

March 12, 2008
Sine is at Owl Cabin working on a paper. Just now, a male spruce grouse walked by in full regalia. He strutted past the window, looking from side to side for his admirers, none of whom I saw. His beautiful copper-tipped tail was splayed, and it waggled from side to side as he strutted. Then, just as I finished typing this, a hen sped past. She was on the edge of the woods, about 20 yards away from the house, moving in the same general direction as Pretty Boy.

Summer, 2008.
Kayt doesn’t remember when this incident happened, so we are just putting it down for mid-summer. Sine was in NC packing up Bold Moon, that much we know for sure. Anyway, Kayt was working at the computer, when for some reason she looked out the window. Maybe a dog gruffed? There was a black bear under the bird feeder! Kayt says that it just sat on its haunches and tipped the bird feeder up and into its mouth! Quite the sighting for Kayt and the dogs.

September 14, 2008
Wilson came by with some elk, buffalo, and moose that he had killed. Yummy! Earlina, Kayt’s boss, also gave us some moose that she had bagged, and Sheri L. gave us some delicious smoked salmon they had canned earlier in the fall. We are eating high on the food chain these days since Sine turned out to be allergic to so many non-meat foods.

Week of Oct. 12-18, 2008
Sometime this week, in the evening, we were alerted to something outside on the deck by ThorSun. Couldn’t see anything at first, then realized it was a Northern Flying Squirrel perched on top of the deck screen door which is opened out making a good perch. It hung out long enough for us to identify it and see and admire its flat tail, then “flew” down to the workbench out there and took off. Earlier this week, on Old Ridge Trail Sine saw a Willow Ptarmigan in winter plumage. We’ve also been seeing lots of Spruce Grouse on Old Ridge Trail. Some boys strutting in full display plumage.

Oct. 18, 2008 – Saturday morning
Sine had to go in to the office early for a phone conference interview. Ursa woke me up barking right before 9:00 am. I looked out for a moose, Couldn’t see one though, but Ursa kept barking and Borys was all excited. I kept looking and finally saw a pretty fox in the woods beyond the deck. Very pretty fox with bushy tail. It strode around for awhile out there. The dogs kept barking, even louder when I finally saw the fox. I’m thinking that maybe the dogs smelled the fox but hadn’t actually seen it until I did, as Ursa was going back and forth from window to deck doors barking to start with. Finally, with all of the barking and carrying on the fox left. I waited quite awhile to let the dogs out, and told them not to chase. They ran right out where the fox had been, but mostly seemed to have been just excitedly smelling. I left the dogs out for awhile, but they came back in when I squeaked the squeaky ball out the deck doors. I think I saw a female Pine Grosbeak out under the feeder too, but didn’t get a positive identification. From demeanor and size and other factors sure seemed to be a female grosbeak though. Later I did see a female and a male grosbeak out under the feeder, and a female hairy woodpecker on the feeder.

October 30, 2008
Sometime last week, we were driving home on Old Nenana and a small animal plummeted across the road in front of us. We realized it was a Flying Squirrel. Pretty amazing. Other more routine sightings this week include a flock of Spruce Grouse in our driveway, the yard Fox, and a Downy Woodpecker this AM on the suet feeder. Hairy Woodpeckers are common sightings, and of course, many Boreal and Black Capped Chickadees. Sine saw a Loon on the Chena two or three weeks ago in front of her accupuncturist’s office. The News-Miner has an article today about a Yellow Billed Loon, and we are wondering if it is the same loon.

November 9, 2008
A male and female Pine Grosbeak are under the feeders snacking on sunflower seeds. Kayt had spotted the pair earlier this fall, so I assume it’s the same pair. Also a female Downy Woodpecker and a male Hairy Woodpecker have been taking turns at the suet along with Black Capped Chickadees. The ubiquitous Gray Jays, looks to be three of them, enjoying the suet this morning. Earlier this week, on Tuesday (election day!), Kayt sat in the car at the Chena River while Sine went to get poked with needles. When Sine came back out, there were two dark-headed loons on the river! Kayt had been reading the whole time, so missed them. We sat for a few minutes in the car and enjoyed watching them dive and surface many feet away.

December 23, 2008
A pesky squirrel chewed through our hanging feeder contraption, and the whole set of feeders was hanging catawampus. This is the third time a squirrel has done this—same culprit, maybe? Kayt got airplane wire, the serious stuff, this week, and we strung it up. No squirrel will chew through this! We’ve got about a dozen Black-capped Chickadees, a male Downy Woodpecker, and a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers. Three Gray Jays—a family group we assume—hang out and enjoy the seeds. Haven’t seen Boreal Chickadees in months, and don’t know why not. An occasional fox visitor, but not as often as in the past. We often have a flock of Spruce Grouse in the driveway and under the trees. Borealys always seems surprised that she can make a dozen birds explode into the trees. There are many Willow Ptarmigan this year, pure white and plump. Must be a banner year for them. Just a couple of weeks ago two of them flew in front of the car and landed on the ground while we were getting gas at Gold Hill. They do not seem to be the smartest birds in the world, as they just pecked the ground for seeds and gravel though there were big trucks and snowmachines zipping just a few feet from them. We see them all the time on Parks Highway in the valley, especially around Gold Hill. We also see them at the top of Old Ridge Trail.

December 26, 2008
And suddenly, there are Redpolls. Perhaps two dozen of them, swarming and diving at the feeders. Maybe six Black-Capped Chickadees, and an entire flock of Redpolls. The feeder is half empty yet it's just now noon. It's only been fully light for an hour or so. A male Downy Woodpecker, and a Hairy Woodpecker pair. I wonder if the Redpolls are here for the duration, or if the flock is just passing through on its journey to somewhere else. We had significant snowfall the last two days--about a foot more of accumulation on top of the two feet we already had. The deck furniture looks like giant marshmallows.

Wildlife sightings 2007

2007-12-23T22:29:00.000-09:00

January 20, 2007
Quite a cold snap two weeks ago, with temperatures here at home hovering -25 to -33. Dogs were miserable, and we had multiple systems failure. But even worse, Fred’s ran out of Woodpecker Seed!!! We tried various substitutes, but the birds don’t like anything as well as their Woodpecker Seed. The Pine Grosbeaks ended up leaving, though I (Sine) saw five about 2 miles south on Old Nenana last week. Once we started getting the right seed again, the Grosbeaks returned. Now there are about three dozen small birds out there—a handful of Chickadees, Boreal and Black-Capped, and the rest seem to be Hoary and Common Redpolls. A male Hairy Woodpecker is an occasional sighting, though we suspect he is a daily regular while we’re at work.
The temp has warmed up and this week it has been around zero to ten above. Nice weather, snowing nearly all the time with fine, light flakes. The feeder needs to be filled once a day, but the birds only empty out ½ to 2/3 this last week. Just a few days ago they emptied it more than once a day, and we commonly filled it twice a day just to keep up. Must be the warmer weather so that they can find other food besides our feeder.
We have a very aggressive moose who ate my ice candles (booo!) and hissed at us once when she was standing in front of our door on the porch. She often is spotted sleeping and/or lying under the bird seed vacuuming up seeds. We have an occasional fox visitor, but we’ve slowed down leaving treats on the buffet table because of our moose issues.
We take the dogs for a walk every day, sometimes more than once a day. Borys is teething, and we have collected five baby teeth. Her appetite is affected, and her digestive system, and there are nights when Kayt (and me) have to get up 5-6 times in the night to let her out. We will be glad when she is an adult, but I know we will miss the exuberance of puppyhood once it’s done. Last Saturday Borealys learned how to fetch Frisbees, and lost another tooth in the process. All of a sudden she just seemed to “get it”, whereas in the past, she has watched Ursa, or even chased Ursa, but refused to put her mouth on the Frisbee. We’re pretty excited about having another good Frisbee dog, and Kayt is looking forward to showing her off at the Ester 4th of July picnic this summer.
Just got back from an hour-long walk in the valley with Borealys and Ursa. Borealys has never walked that far from home before, and Ursa was having a good time showing her how to be a trail dog. They would run far ahead of me, and then come charging back. At the beginning, Ursa was always the lead dog in the charge back to MamaSine, but near the end of our walk, Borealys was playing lead dog role. We had lots of fun, and Ursa and I are exhausted. Borys, though, is ready for more action.

February 25, 2007
Kayt is upstairs doing a job application, and I’ve been helping. It’s cold again. Been in the minus -20s and -30s here at our house, and even colder in town. Cecile says that it’s only -10 to -15 at her house; quite a difference even though we’re so close to her. About 3 dozen birds out at the feeder. We have both a male and female Hairy Woodpecker, and yesterday he fed on seeds while she fed on suet at the same time. He’s really plump or fluffed out, and Kayt was sure he was pregnant with eggs back before the light returned. Seems likely that he’s just fluffy, but he is much plumper looking than the female. Kayt counted 9 Pine Grosbeaks two weeks ago, and our fox has been a continual presence this weekend. Borys didn’t eat her breakfast yesterday, so Kayt took it out for the fox. We think she is the one who got it, because the buffet table was cleaned off about an hour later. We fill the feeder once a day now, and they empty it out before dusk.

April 7, 2007
Kayt is in Chicago at the MSS meetings presenting her Transforming Survival into Resistance Paper. Sine at home alone with the dogs. Yesterday, it warmed up significantly in the 50s, and the snow melted enough to scoop the deck. Borys was thrilled and couldn’t believe the sights and smells associated with spring. We sat outside for an hour in the sun, and then in the evening built a fire and mused, but she was afraid of the deck. But today, she loves going on and off the porch—on the right side nearest the ground, the steps are still scary. I read and worked on the porch for a few hours this afternoon, and she and Ursa grooved on the deck. Mostly Ursa and I grooved, and the puppy sniffed and scooped snow with her nose. She found an old frozen chew-chew and thought she was queen of the world. The redpolls seem to have disappeared; we lost them two weeks ago when Fred’s ran out of woodpecker seed. But our Hairy Woodpecker couple is still around, and lots of Chickadees and Boreal Chickadees and at least one Pine Grosbeak pair. We have two seed feeders, and fill them once a day or so. It’s light when we get up (5:30AM with the puppy) and light when we go to bed (11:00PM). We hear Great Horned Owls, mostly in the valley and to the north. Three squirrel regulars at the feeders.

August 2, 2007
Summer quickly slipped by. Borealys will be a year old on August 16. Shy, beautiful, mostly a good dog with a few quirks to be worked out. She got over her collar “thing”, and her car “thing”, and her leash “thing”. Now she has a “thing” about the truck, won’t ALWAYS come when called, though usually she will. She is afraid of deep water, but loves to wade and to chase Ursa chasing sticks in the water. Sits reliably, fetches balls inside, catches reliably inside or out. Has not yet figured out that to play Frisbee, one has to fetch it back to the person instead of chewing it to smithereens. We took the dogs to drive on Standard Creek Road last weekend for Kayt’s 55th birthday. The full adventure is best told by Kayt. Borealys seemed to learn to swim; she had only waded before, and got dunked and frightened by the water. But the next day she seemed to have forgotten. SA saw a Sandhill Crane where they were swimming a couple of days earlier. We all saw a snowshoe hare, gray summer colors, with HUGE feet. We have a male moose hanging out at in the neighborhood, and Wilson says he’s gonna be dinner if he’s still here come hunting season. Have not seen anything of the aggressive female moose of last year. Hopefully, she has moved on to other territory. Borealys rolled in moose poop, the slimy wet kind, and got a 10:00 PM bath the other night. SA is anxious to see stars and goes out every night as late as she can and scans the heavens. Still light most of the time, though twilight is getting deeper and longer. Put up a chickadee and woodpecker box. Thought they would be cruisable all winter, and then available for nesting in spring. Garden is doing well; lots of rain this summer. Moose fence seems to be holding! A squirrel broke the rope holding up the feeders, so we have not fed birds all summer. The chickadees are cruising them today, and have been munching on the old suet. Looks like it’s time to get the feeders back in operation. Melanie moved into Owl Cabin two weeks ago, and saw a moose her first night. Weather is cool, few mosquitoes but lots of no-see-ums, and rain most every day or so.

August 3, 2007
First star 12:20 AM this morning; this evening, two owls calling.

August 31, 2007
First aurora borealis. Didn’t look like much at 11:00, but as soon as Kayt got outside, it blossomed into quite the show.

September 2, 2007
Downy Woodpecker on the suet feeder! Looks like a male. Kayt spotted it. First we have seen here at Sunana.

September, 2007
So. Kayt and I were sitting in the living room in early evening, still light out, but getting towards dusk. Suddenly, there were two bull moose in our back yard, sparring. They were jostling their antlers, and strutting around rubbing their antlers on trees. Later, we saw huge scrape marks on the trees where they had been rubbing their antlers, and one of them pulled the bird box off the tree. The two boys were having quite the time, play charging, and stomping around, and clacking their antlers. One was quite a bit smaller than the other, and he finally left the party and slunk off into the woods to the west of the house. Big Pretty Boy realized he had won this fight, and strutted over past the garden and up the driveway. He was king of the woods, at the top of his game. He had won his big fight. He was something to see. We were taking videos of him as he strutted his stuff and cockwalked up the driveway to the road. A truck went by, and suddenly, sixty seconds later, two gunshots rang out through the woods. Big Pretty Boy strutted his last walk.
We have struggled with this, and we were pretty angry at our neighbor for killing the moose. We finally found some peace with this because Big Pretty Boy had been at the top of his game, had been King, when he passed from this life. And he went for a good cause—our neighbor is feeding many children, and it was an easy kill. But he was shooting in our direction, and all of us were out in the yard, and that was scary.

September 14, 2007
Downy Woodpecker at the feeder—suet is his favorite. Has a tiny red nape; Kayt thinks she has seen a female also. And definitely a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers. The puppy is now a year old (as of August 16), and it’s a lovely fall. Warm, with no frost yet. The leaves are falling like rain today, and it seems just last week that we saw the first hints of yellow in the trees.

October 6, 2007
One morning this past week a Hawk Owl visited our yard. It first perched somewhere need the feeder, then swooped past the window on its way to the garden to catch a vole. Then it landed on the garden fence and flapped its wings while holding the (dead) vole in its talon. After a minute or so, it flew to a top of a broken off tree and seemed to stash the vole there. As soon as it left on some errand, a Chickadee went over to see what had been stashed there! It came back, perched on the top of the woodpecker nest box, ate its vole and perched in a birch for a nap. Sine took the dogs for a walk, and when we came back, noticed the screeching and flapping of a pair of Gray Jays. As it turns out, they had spotted the nesting Hawk Owl and were dive-bombing it and mobbing it! No rest for the weary Owl! Today is our first real snow. About 2” so far, and still coming down. The feeders are busy with a female Hairy Woodpecker, male Downey Woodpecker, Boreal Chickadees, Gray Jays, Black-Capped Chickadees. A Dark-Eyed Junco is still here, flitting around and around. The puppy, now a little over a year old, thinks snow is wonderful.

October 7, 2007
A female Pine Grosbeak landed on the feeder bar, but didn’t dine. She flew off pretty quickly. There was a female fox under the feeder this morning, driving the dogs crazy. And us crazy, with the barking . A female Downy Woodpecker ate on the suet in the window, so for sure we have a pair. And Kayt thinks the Hairy Woodpecker that was out on the far feeder was a male, so looks like we still have that pair, too. Gray Jays galore, and what seems to be a solitary Raven. It snowed for about 36 hours, and our total accumulation looks like 2-3 inches. Still warm—just in the 20s—but the birds, fox, and squirrels are feasting up for winter! Last week we heard a flock of something flying overhead just at dusk. Spooked the puppy, who was on the deck with Sine. I called Kayt out, and we couldn’t exactly figure out what they were. Not Canada Geese, but not so sure they were Sandhill Cranes, either. They left several weeks ago. Different from what we thought were the Trumpeter Swans last year when Linda was visiting.

October 20, 2007
Got lots of snow the last day or so while Sine was down in Juneau giving her Evening at Eagan lecture (which I got to attend via webstreaming from the UAS cable TV & webstreaming programming! Sine and Nicole were great!) Last night driving home I saw a fox cross the road on Parks. Looked larger but not as plump and beautifully furred as the on that visits here under our bird feeder. A female downy woodpecker was out eating on the wooden (and now wire) suet feeder outside the window (only one suet out there, the other suet feeder outside the window was open again and the ones out between the trees had been eaten all up). The chickadees were on the porch flitting around on the tree roots we’ve got displayed out there and making lots of noise to let me know that their feeders were empty so I went out and filled up all of the feeders. Soon a female Hairy woodpecker came for lunch, and a trio of gray jays and lots of chickadees. Now there is a squirrel out there eating on the cedar and wire feeder. So far it doesn’t seem to be destroying anything so I’m going to keep an eye on it but let it eat. I want to see if it is the one that opens the other suet feeder. If it starts causing any trouble I will chase it off. Oh, now a gray jay is flying by close trying to intimidate the squirrel. So far the gray jay is having no luck. Ohhhh, glad I am still watching! A male grosbeak just showed up. It really looks beautiful up there in the snowy tree. Now it is down on the snow under the feeders picking up seeds that have fallen. The squirrel is still on the suet eating. Now it just jumped off and dive bombed into the window ledge right where Otto was watching. Quite the excitement. The dogs had to come over to woof and protect us all. Now the squirrel is back and Otto has quite the observation spot, right at the window. Otto doesn’t seem to get all excited and chatter like Sunny & Sadie. He is just watching. If Sine’s flight is on time she should be taking off from Juneau about now. Guess I’ll get online to see if Alaska Air is on time. The male downy woodpecker came to partake of the new suet. The squirrel is finally done eating for now, I believe. The grosbeak has made more visits. And now a boreal chickadee is out on the new suet I put out. Quite a carnival out there today. Now the female downy is back! On the new suet. The sun has come out and now there is a female downy on the wooden suet feeder (looks bigger than the other one, could it be that we have two female downy woodpeckers and at least one male?) and a couple of boreal chickadees on the springing suet feeder. After my bath I’m back bird watching. and see another downy on the springing feeder. Couldn’t tell if it was male or female though. Female grosbeak out in the tree now, and a boreal chickadee on the springing bird feeder.

October 30, 2007
Cool sightings today, a momentous day as it is Sine’s Peer Unit Promotion & Tenure Review day. Sine went in earlier than I, and I was still here at home so took the dogs for a walk and we’d just gotten back when I was looking out the kitchen window and saw the fox out under the bird feeders. Saw the fox come in and circle around the birdfeeders so that it was facing the house and the windows to eat. The fox was eating when a BIG bird flew over and landed in one of the trees beyond the bird feeder. I didn’t know what the bird was, except the it was BIG. I got out the binoculars so that I could see it better and realized that it was some sort of hawk. When I got out the binoculars Ursa realized something was up and went over to the window to see what I was looking at. Ursa and Borealys saw the fox then, so had to bark and bark, and bark. The hawk moved from tree to tree watching the fox, I think. Then, I think, got tired of all of the barking and flew further into the woods, and then away. I got enough time watching it to figure out that it was a Northern Goshawk. Pretty cool to see.
Really was striking looking, and more the blue gray and white colors that show up in the picture above with the goshawk flying. As I said, the Goshawk left, then after awhile the fox left too. I had to get to town to teach Ross’s class, so was getting ready to head in. The fox came back, but I couldn’t wait any longer to leave, so went right out with the fox there under the birdfeeder. The fox watched me while I unplugged the car and wrapped up the cord, then stepped back behind the birdfeeders and sat down and watched me leave. I imagine it went back to eating after I was out of the driveway.
Here is some more information about the Goshawk:
“The northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) is the largest North American member of the genus Accipiter, or "true hawks." An adult goshawk is 21-26 inches long with a wing span of 40-46 inches. Females are usually larger than males. Its wings and back are blue-gray and its underparts are white with fine black barring. The undertail coverts are white and fluffy, and quite noticeable in the field. The top of its head, called the crown, is dark and separated from the blue-gray back by a white eyebrow that flares behind its deep red eye.”

November 2, 2007
Sine saw a big bird swoop past as she was sitting on the couch reading tonight. She figures it must have been an owl, since it is pitch black out there. Probably no other birds out flying this time of night.

December 26, 2007.
Sine got up in the morning and said, huh. Kayt, still upstairs, said what? And Sine said, oh, only two bull moose sparring in our yard! They heard us, and slipped away into the woods. Quite the sighting, as we have only rarely seen bulls, much less bulls sparring in our yard.

Wildlife sightings 2006

2006-12-23T22:31:00.000-09:00

March 16
Mama moose and Hank (young male) ripped up birdfeeders and scared the bejesus out of Kayt and me. We took down what was left of the birdfeeders and purchased another tube feeder and suspended them in birches on the edge of the yard. The black-capped chickadees found the new location before we finished stringing it up, and the boreal chickadees also moved quickly. They swoop in and out from the suet, still in the window, and visit the feeders.

March 19
Kayt saw what she thinks may have been the female Hairy Woodpecker on the new feeder location. She’s been a frequent suet and seed feeder visitor this year. We’ve seen only three Redpolls this year—quite a contrast to the last two years when they were frequent large flocks of them this time of year.

March 26, 2006
Kayt spotted a male Pine Grosbeak on the ground under the feeder, and promptly went out to fill up the feeders and to spread sunflower seeds underneath. In the evenings these last few weeks we hear Boreal Owls and up to three Great Horned Owls. Two nights ago, we heard what we think is a juvenile Great Horned Owl, as it seemed to stutter in its answer to the two adults. All seemed located in a triangle, with us in the center.

April 1, 2006
Pine Grosbeak pair hanging out and eating under the feeder. They stayed under the feeder for quite a while, then went to the big tree root pile beyond (and between the two trees that the feeders are suspended from, from the view we've got out the livingroom window) and picked up little pieces of dirt (to help in digestion I found out when I read Stan's Wisconsin Bird Guide). They also took little baths in the snow covering some of the tree roots (also something Stan talks about). The Pine Grosbeaks sure are beautiful birds. So glad that they have come to feed under our feeders.
Oh, cool, a female Hairy Woodpecker is out eating under the feeders now. I heard a lot of talk out there, so looked out and there she was. I'm so glad that she announces herself so that we get good sightings of her. I love to see the birds that are distinguishable as male or female. Especially the Grosbeaks that are so very beautiful. A squirrel is out there now, trying to find something good left on the ground. Sunny is in the window watching.
Lots more bird and squirrel activity all day. Ravens calling, more visits from both Pine Grosbeaks and from just the male, some Gray Jays, and the usual chickadees.
The past few nights there has been lots of owl activity. In fact last night the boreal was so loud (must have been really close) we could hear it from inside the house. Boreal and Great Horned calling last night.

April 5, 2006
AM, about 8:00, seemed to be the signal for birds to come munch at the feeder. First the male, then the female Pine Grosbeak came to eat under the feeder. They were joined by two Gray Jays, multiple Black Capped Chickadees and Boreal Chickadees, the female Hairy Woodpecker, and at least three squirrels. Lots of activity out there! We haven’t heard owls at night for nearly a week; it’s really light even at 10:00 PM, so perhaps they just aren’t out yet.

April 8, 2006
We sat on the deck to enjoy the sunlight. Still about four feet of snow on the ground, and it will snow all week (we didn’t know that yet). It was cool, but quite comfortable on the porch in the snow with the house behind us. A butterfly came by—the next day Sine looked it up online, and we think it was a Hoary Comma. Since it has been cold and snowy since, we worry about what happened to it. But the online reference said that the adults over-winter, so perhaps it just found a nice place to hang out until the sun returns.

April 10, 2006
The Pine Grosbeak pair continues to hang out and eat under the feeders. The male seems protective of the female, and scouts out the site before she flits in to eat. Still lots of Chickadees of both persuasions, and the female Hairy Woodpecker is a daily visitor. It warmed up to 40 and 50, then has been snowing off an on for days, though it melts quickly. Still have quite a bit of snow on the ground. We saw a Red Fox at the pond in Ester last week. Watched it cross the road, really wary of both us and the road, it seemed. This evening, a male Junco appeared on the deck, and flew back and forth carrying on its business.

April 11, 2006
Ursa scared a flock of Spruce Grouse as they were picking up little pieces of gravel in the driveway this morning. No sign of Redpolls in days.

April 13, 2006
Most exciting sighting in years. Snow Buntings! Last evening, I sat on the porch for awhile and noticed the sweetest warbling among the trees. There seemed to be at least three of these new birdsongs, but I didn’t see the singers. Then tonight, when I arrived home, four of them were feasting on the ground around the log buffet table. They all moved to under the seed feeder until they flew away when I came out to put out more seed. They are stunningly beautiful—pure white with black backs and wing tips, and a bit of rust on their heads and breasts. Since there are four, I assume they are two pairs, but can’t tell them apart. Chubby little birds, definitely in their white stage. Still have loads of snow, and the ground is covered 100%.

April 14, 2006
Snow Buntings still here. One seems aggressive and chases the others, and they are wary of squirrels. Another male Junco is out there, bringing our total, it seems, to two. This evening when I brought Kayt home from the airport, the four Snow Buntings flew away from the buffet table, so she got to see them briefly. Then—another cool sighting—late evening, still quite light outside, Kayt saw a Red Fox in the back yard. It moved swiftly along the path just on the edge of the woods, slipped behind the buffet table and glided deep into the woods.

April 15, 2006
The Snow Buntings walk and hop to get around, more than they fly. They also seem to nestle into the snow and just sit for long periods. Grooving in the sun, it seems, as they face the sun while they are roosting. Sun-roosting, perhaps. Kayt worked outside digging the greenhouse out from about four feet of snow, and Ursa ran around with her Frisbee, yet Kayt reports that the Snow Buntings did not seem fearful nor did they fly away. No sign of the Pine Grosbeaks for three days now. Seems they have moved on for the season.

April 16, 2006
A fox ran through the back yard. Kayt saw it, then Sine, Kayt and Ursa all got to watch it go through the back yard and then off through the trees to the West. Snow Buntings are still here.

April 17, 2006
A BIG Hawk flew through the yard and perched somewhere near, as Sine saw it first, then 5 or 10 minutes later Sine, Kayt and Ursa saw it fly away through the trees behind the house (south). Sine saw the Snow Buntings flying to the south outta here right before the Hawk sighting. We are hoping that the Hawk didn’t get the Snow Buntings, or any of “our” birds or squirrels.

April 18, 2006
Not so much bird activity at the feeders today. At least there wasn’t so much seed gone today as there had been. We did see one Snow Bunting tonight after getting home. Watched The Sting on DVD upstairs, so didn’t spend a lot of time bird watching tonight.

April 19, 2006
Sine left for Hollywood this morning. Kayt and Ursa walked out to play Frisbee and flushed a Grouse who flew up on top of the house and was on the front peak of the roof for a long time. Wish we’d have had the camera so we could have taken a picture of our Grouse roof ornament. Pretty cool. A female (I think it was a female) Hairy Woodpecker was out pecking around under the bird feeders after Kayt and Ursa filled them up.

April 23, 2006
Snowed right smart this Sunday morning. Got a couple of inches. It might melt though, as the temp is right at the freezing mark, and the sun looks like it is coming out. The roof is dripping as are the trees. A group of Juncos were pecking around in the gravel under the truck (where the snow hadn’t covered the ground) and then they came around under the windows where the bird feeders used to be and were picking up bird seed that has surfaced under the windows as the snow has melted.

April 25, 2006
Kayt had mentioned seeing several Dark-Eyed Juncos this past weekend. Today there are easily a dozen of them scuffling through the leaves under the seed feeder and under where the feeder used to be here at the house. Also two Common Redpolls, which makes me think that this is a different flock than the one who flew in earlier in March. Three Hoary Comma butterflies were trapped in the north kitchen window, like last year (only one last year, though). I think a year or so ago a butterfly laid eggs, and they are now hatching. I loosened up half of the staples so I could get them. I laid them very carefully on the logs on the porch, and two of them remained upright. Unfortunately, one seemed not to have made it. It just lay on its side, showing no signs of life. An hour later, the other two had moved into the sun but it had not. I moved it into the sun, though it still just laid there motionless. Lo and behold! An hour later it was revived and also standing upright in the sun!

April 26, 2006
This morning all three Hoary Comma butterflies are sunning themselves, but remaining motionless. With their wings closed, they look absolutely like spruce bark, right down to the jagged edges and silvery streaks. By the time Sine got home, two had flown away. By late evening, the third one left. This evening, Sine sat on the deck for a couple of hours. There were at least a dozen Dark-Eyed Juncos—the dark slate color—and Chickadees flitting about, singing and twittering. Squirrels all around also, chattering and whirring. Lots of activity, the trees filled with it. Suddenly, all of the birds and the squirrels scrambled or flew for cover and the forest slid into immediate silence. So quiet, in fact, that I could clearly hear what they had heard! A hawk—immense and low flying—cruised the yard, its wings making a whooshing sound as it passed overhead. The forest was quiet for several minutes, and then, one-by-one, the birds returned, the squirrels crept out, and activity returned to its normal level. Quite an experience! Don’t know what kind of hawk it is, but it is very large. It must be the individual we saw last week, but I didn’t get enough of a sighting to be able to identify it. It seems to have a largish head—an eagle, owl, or harrier, perhaps? Long wings. The Northern Harrier, for example, though uncommon in the Interior (per Armstrong book), flies with the down-turned wings like this individual did, and has the largish head and smallish tail.

April 30, 2006
Kayt and I were picnicking on our porch for lunch in the sun (Kayt got credit for the most brilliant idea of the week), hanging out and enjoying the birds. We still have quite a bit of snow covering the ground. Suddenly, silence descended, and birds disappeared. A large gray bird that we at first thought was a Gray Jay flew into the feeder area and perched on a log. I commented how the silence was just like the time the Northern Harrier came through, and that the birds must have mistaken the Gray Jay for a Hawk. Then Kayt said, I don’t think it’s a Gray Jay. At that moment, it took off after a little bird that had been trying to hide at the feeder site and chased it into the woods. We saw brown bars under its wings, so we knew it wasn’t a Gray Jay! It chased another bird, then flew off. We think it may be a Sharp Shinned Hawk, but didn’t really get enough of a sighting to be able to conclusively identify it.

May 3, 2006
Ursa and I just saw the fox in our yard. This is the second time we’ve seen a fox in our yard this year. It's golden red, Dulce color (my beloved dog who was the color of fall grasses.) It came up the path from the South Woods like before, and was headed to the bird feeders on the West side of the house. It spotted us about the time it got to the log buffet table, and we all looked at each other for 15 seconds, and then Ursa couldn't help making noise even though I was holding her and telling her not to bark. But it didn't flee, just turned and sauntered off back into the woods. I think it must be a regular visitor. Jordan had one a few years ago who ate under her feeder, (seed, not birds), so I suppose ours does, too.

May 7, 2006
On Friday, I heard what I thought might have been a robin at UAF, and then heard a similar call at home while we sat on the porch. We could not see the singer. But then today, two days later, an American Robin is cruising our yard looking for bugs.

May 14, 2006
Worked outside, all three of us, Saturday and Sunday. Lovely days. Saw a swallow—not sure what kind, but it was iridescent on its back and circled over our new orchard many times. Flew right over our heads seeming not to care that we were present. Stan’s description of a Tree Swallow seems to fit, but we just can’t tell. Only saw the one—but heard a strange call. Robins sing all night, and it’s still quite light out at midnight.

May 23, 2006
Sine has been working outside for the last several days, putting in our first Alaska garden and planting perennials and fruiting trees and shrubs. Both of us saw the golden fox last week, late in the evening. Yesterday Sine saw a hawk with its prey dangling from its talons. A mouse or shrew, perhaps? Lots of robins in the woods who sing all night and all day. Juncos and the Hairy Woodpecker are the only regular feeder visitors. Well, and the red squirrels. Kayt saw lots of Sandhill Cranes behind her chiropractor’s office yesterday, and we see ducks often when we go near rivers and ponds.

June 19, 2006
On our walk this AM, we heard ravens cro-acking and squawking constantly near the Owl Cabin. We wondered what was going on, as it seemed to be quite the party. Then when Sine left for work, she saw a black bear in the power right-of-way. We wonder if the ravens were following the bear on its meanderings like they are said to do with wolf packs.

July 26, 2006
Kayt spotted what we think is black bear poop on the margin of the road just at the property lines between Owl and Sunana. It had lots of long ivory-colored hair, and what I think look like cherry pits (Kayt thinks there are some other seeds; we had just put out cherries on the log buffet table, so it is to our emotional advantage to think that the seeds in the poop are something other than what would have been in our yard). Looks like VERY LARGE dog poop, but with lots of hair clumped on one end, and the seeds on the other end.

August 15, 2006
Sine is at home working in the garden and yard. Early afternoon I heard what sounded like a hawk ki-ki-ki-ki on the north side of the garden—perhaps unrelated to the sighting. A few minutes later, I saw a very large dark bird. At first I thought it was a raven, but it’s a Great Horned Owl! It perched on a branch and has been there for several hours now. It seems completely unafraid of me or Ursa, and watches me intently. I was able to get very close to it and peer at it with the binoculars, and it just blinks and follows my gaze. It’s a bit unnerving to be the object of a raptor’s attention!! After Kayt got home, we examined the photo I took and we agree on its identity. I had heard a Great Horned Owl for the first time this summer two evenings ago, the night I saw the first star. Quite exciting! BTW—the picture of the Owl here is one I took.

August 20, 2006 – Sunday morning
Foggy (or Sunana in the clouds) this morning when I (Kayt) got up at 8:15 to feed dogs (Evie is here while Tim is away) and kitties. Ursa went back to bed after she ate. Evie stayed down here with me though and kept watch on the squirrel and bird action on the deck. LOTS of squirrels running back and forth, chickadees on the feeders, and a female junco, I believe, hopping across the deck. Evie had to go from the freedom doors to the windows to follow the squirrel action. She is quite a good watcher dog. Didn’t make a sound either, which was very good, as Sine is upstairs sleeping off a BAD cold/flu. While I was eating my breakfast the sun burned off the fog or clouds, and the gray jays were swooping back and forth outside as well. Then I heard what sounded to me like a ki-ki-ki-ki so I got up to see if I could see what it was. Out beyond the garden I saw something on top of a birch that is broken off about 15 feet high. I got out the binoculars and saw what I believe to be a hawk owl. The size, coloring, and markings seemed to match those of the hawk owls, and there were no ear tufts for sure. The owl perched there on the top of the broken birch for quite a while, seemingly surveying the garden and surrounding clearing, then flew up into the birch trees beyond the bird feeder. While the owl was out there the gray jays, squirrels and other birds seemed to take to the trees, perhaps in hiding. When the owl flew into the birch trees I saw some chickadees scatter and clear out of that area. I lost sight of the owl, haven’t heard anymore owl calls, and the chickadees are back, so I imagine the morning hawk owl visit has concluded.

September 23, 2006 – Saturday
Sine is in Anchorage speaking at the ACLU membership meeting so I’m here on solitary duty with cats, dogs and all assorted duties. [We got the new puppy a few days ago, on September 16]. Today when I was out filling/cleaning out the feeders I heard a woodpecker and a lot of tapping on the trees to the southwest of the feeder hander trees. I looked over and there were two woodpeckers following each other up those trees, especially the dead standing ones. I was so happy to see that our woodpecker has a mate. Interesting thing is though, I don’t think that there was any red on either of the woodpeckers. I think they are both female. I didn’t have the binoculars out there with me, so can’t say for sure. The woodpeckers were out there going up and down the trees for some time though, and flying around the area. I kept looking but didn’t see any red. On Old Nenana on my way into town to take Kali in to the vet for the yeast infection in her ears I saw a rabbit that was turning white. Its legs and a few other spots were white. I also saw a grouse with its tail all spread out like a turkey. This grouse was on Old Nenana too. I saw a couple of grouse on Old Ridge that seemed to be starting to turn white as well.

September 24, 2006 – Sunday morning
Sine is still in Anchorage. Called while I was writing this. She is started home now. Earlier Ursa saw Mama moose and her baby. Baby isn’t such a baby anymore. Really is growing. Probably 4 foot tall. Ursa had to woof and woof. Not too loud, just to let the moose know that she (Ursa) was guarding the house. Lots of squirrels chasing each other around out there. Simmy is sitting in the window watching the squirrels and gray jays. Tim reported seeing a lynx at Owl Cabin, but we assumed that he’s a city boy and wouldn’t know a lynx from a fox. But then, Kayt saw strange poop on the road near where the bear poop was earlier this year. She showed it to Sine, and we looked it up in the field guide. Sure does look like lynx poop to us, as it matches the book’s drawing. Makes us nervous to be out with the little puppy, who is just the size of a loaf of bread, and a lynx nearby.

September 30, 2006
Sine: On my home from Anchorage last week, it was a brilliantly clear fall day. I saw Denali several times, and took great pictures. First time I have ever seen Denali without clouds up so close. Sheer awe. A black bear crossed the road at a fast trot somewhere in the Matanuska Valley. I stopped at a stream to see what I could see, and found a set of what I think are caribou bones. The hips and several vertebrae. Brought them home for Kayt. Snowed last night for the first time—we got about 2 inches, but today it is melting. We harvested the last of the garden in the snow, and Kayt’s hands got so cold they turned red and were very painful. Still, I think it was worth the discomfort! We had broccoli soup last night made of the leaves, and we froze celery and fennel tops for this winter. Also pulled the beets and carrots; we were surprised at how many carrots there were, and how big they had gotten. but the beets were disappointing. It was a bad year for root crops I think because of the lack of sun and the chronic cool weather and rain. Borealys is 6 weeks old this weekend. Maybe today is her 6th week birthday. She’s a mellow puppy compared to Ursa and certainly to Aki!! She is afraid of the dark and gets cold really quickly. Still, all day today she has been good about going outside to potty.

November 19, 2006
It’s -20 these days and nights. Last night, we heard the Great Horned Owl every time we took Borealys out to potty. First time we’ve heard it since early fall when we saw it on the ridge and then heard it in the evening. Last week Borys learned to fetch, the week before that she learned to sit and once she scratched on the door to be let out. Training is going pretty well. She has a “thing” about collars, and sulks and hides whenever a collar is apparent. She is 14 weeks old this weekend. Kayt took out sweet potato leavings to the buffet table, and a Gray Jay is feasting on it. We have had several fox sightings. We think it’s a male because “someone” has pooped and peed on the buffet table—marking it, we think. He uses the same path as the fox who was our frequent visitor last year. Really pretty red fox, who comes early in the light and cruises the buffet table. If there is something interesting on it, he gets on top to snack. Apparently, if the buffet table doesn’t hold interesting snacks, he marks it with his dissatisfaction! This is quite like the fox at Bold Moon who would poop outside the doggie door to leave a message for the dogs. We have about 6” of snow, and it’s been very cold. Linda Hester was here in October, and we saw the Aurora Borealis her first and second nights. We also heard what we think was a flock of Sandhill Cranes, Trumpeter Swans, or maybe Snow Geese overhead migrating south in the dark. We couldn’t see them, but we could hear them clearly. They sounded most like trumpets, which is why I think they may be Trumpeter Swans. And earlier, when I was in the Matanuska Valley in September, I saw a pair on a river. It looks like we have a nesting pair of Hairy Woodpeckers. We have been seeing a couple of them at a time, and then yesterday we confirmed that the one feeding at the seed feeder had a red skullcap. This year is the first year we have seen a male at this house. This morning a Redpoll was taking a snow bath on the post on the back porch. There is a flock of other birds in the woods too far away for us to identify, but we think they are also Redpolls. Chickadees at the feeder for the last several weeks, and this past week we saw Boreal Chickadees.

November 22, 2006
It’s definitely a male Hairy Woodpecker! I (Sine) went out to feed the birds this morning about 9:30. It’s still dusk out and snowing a little. It’s been in the -20s for several days, but today it’s just below 0. I was able to get really close to the feeder before the woodpecker flew away—I was no further than 15 feet away so I could clearly see the bright red patch on his neck. He was contentedly feeding from the seed feeder, and had been for quite some time. We are having to fill the seed feeder about every other day now, as they are going through it fast. Looks like we have about a dozen Black-Capped Chickadees, a couple of Boreal Chickadees, and about a dozen Common Redpolls. Kayt noticed that the Redpolls here are more rusty than they are red. Regional variation? At work, there is a flock of Pine Grosbeaks that are hanging out in the courtyards around Gruening. I counted 30 of them this past week. They twitter and have such a sweet sound. The trees they roost in seem alive with sound.

November 23, 2006
Thanksgiving day. We are cooking and cleaning and preparing to have Susan and Lillian over for lunch. It’s -17, and cloudy. Kayt spotted a pair of Pine Grosbeaks at the feeder! The male was the first to be spotted—he’s whistling such a sweet tune. Stan calls it a rich sweet tone, and he’s right. The female is more olive than dull yellow, as Stan describes her. They are hanging out near the feeder, but not sure if they are feeding from it. The male woodpecker has been eating and eating, with a lot of hullabaloo going on around him, but he’s concentrating on his breakfast. Kayt counted well over a dozen Common Redpolls, and there are at least a dozen Black-Capped Chickadees and a handful of Boreal Chickadees. There are three or four squirrels who have quite the paths established to the ground under the feeder and to their various caches in the woods and shed. The feeder is busy today. We are filling it every day now. Had a moose hanging out in the yard for quite a while as we were cooking Thanksgiving dinner and cleaning this morning. Ursa saw her as she (the moose) was out checking to see what was on the buffet table. When the moose found nothing much on the buffet table she went over under the bird feeder and was eating there. Then the moose started nibbling on the hanging bird feeder so Kayt went out and told the moose that she could eat seeds off the ground but not out of the bird feeder. Then the moose came up on the porch and was checking out stuff on the porch so Sine went out and took some pictures. Then the moose went back out to the bird feeders (and had to be talked to again about not pulling down the birdfeeder) then went around the yard eating herbs and grass, etc. Finally when Kayt turned on the vacuum cleaner the moose didn’t seem to like that and moseyed down the trail in back of the house. Quite a long moose visit, and a moose we didn’t really recognize. She sure was BIG though.

December 10, 2006
Kayt fed the birds first thing this morning. We have to fill up the seed feeder every 24 hours to keep up with the demand. Looks like four Pine Grosbeaks, two girls and two boys, who have been here for at least a month. Lots of Black-Capped Chickadees, a handful of Boreal Chickadees, and Redpolls. It looks like we have at least two foxes; one seems cowed by the birds and ducks and cringes when it eats the seed on the ground. Another seems nonplussed. The foxes seem to enjoy the buffet table spread. Last night we slept in Stella and at 1:00 when we went to bed there was still some stuff on the table. But not when we got up! And Kayt said there were little pee spots around, so looks like the male got the feast. Borealys learned to fetch balls this week and does so rather reliably. We got the dogs red blinkers for their collars, and we are so much more comfortable taking them on walks in the dusk and during the dark. Which is nearly constant now. It’s either dusk or completely dark now. Haven’t seen the sun down here in our valley for a couple of weeks. It’s very mild weather—in the high 20s and even up to 30 last evening, which is why we slept in Stella.

December 16, 2006
Saturday noon, Sine left for the office a few minutes ago. There is a woodpecker out eating the new “no waste” feed from the tube feeder. Still lots of chickadees and redpolls all over out there, and a squirrel hanging out of one of the sticks out there , and going down to pick up good stuff off the ground. The new feed is a big hit.
During the half hour that we were on the first leg of our walk someone (don’t know who it was because we weren’t here to see) ate most of the bread, cake, etc. that we’d put out on the buffet table (left overs from the Education celebration). There are two gray jays out there eating now, so they must have been the ones to get the bounty from the School of Ed. Throngs of red polls and chickadees, and at least one squirrel are continuing to enjoy the new birdfeed in and under the feeders.
After the second leg of our walk, a half hour of walking to Owl Cabin and down the trail in back of Owl cabin and a half hour over with Evie, in the house and getting Evie out to potty, we came back to gray jays cleaning up what is left on the buffet table, and continued throngs of appreciative red polls and chickadees, and at least one squirrel. Ursa and Borealys cornered one squirrel (don’t know if it is the same one that has been enjoying the new bird seed) under the woodpile, then chased it over to the shed. Quite the exciting time with wildlife! Ursa is tired and taking a rest, Bory just laid down with her. I’m expecting some quiet after our walking frenzy.

Wildlife sightings 2004

2004-12-25T23:26:00.000-09:00

March 14, 2004
Kayt brought the feeders from Kallenburg and put them up late last evening. First thing this AM, at 8:45ish, two black-capped chickadees discovered them and started eating. A pair of gray jays tried the seed feeder and the suet, but a nasty Sadie leap of doom scared them away. At 10:00 PM, Sine heard both a Great Horned Owl AND a Boreal Owl—first owls we have heard since coming to AK, and, of course, we have never heard a Boreal before. Way cool.

March 18, 2004
Flock of Common Red Polls at the feeder this morning. At least 12, I think. They seem to like the food in the glass feeder and in the tall plastic feeder. Sadie is growling at them. I think the red polls may have been here yesterday, as the lamp was turned over on the table. This red poll flock seems to be causing quite a bit of cat excitement, so imagine that was the precipitator on the lamp turn over. Heard a Great Horned Owl in the evening

March 19, 2004
Red polls continuing to flock and eat. A Gray Jay around in the yard.

March 20, 2004
Sine’s back.. Kayt had told me that she had seen Red Polls earlier, and now I got to see them! She’s right—there are at least a dozen flitting around. The Red Polls and the Black-capped Chickadees seem to be taking turns at the feeders. There is so much life in our woods now—there are birds flying to and from the feeders and just hanging around the border trees. It feels lively here, even though it’s still wintertime and -4.

April 3, 2004
Red polls continuing to flock, Chickadees too. Kayt saw a male Pine Grosbeak and then a female Pine Grosbeak while Sine was on the phone. Then Sine saw them, as they hung around and fed sporadically all day. Beautiful big birds. The female doesn’t look like the pictures in the Alaska birds book exactly, but does look like the Wisconsin “Stan’s” pictures. The Grosbeaks seem to like the sunflower seeds on the ground so we will make sure to put lots of sunflower seeds on the ground. Gray Jay hanging around on the deck in the afternoon. At night, Sine heard a Boreal Owl.

April 4, 2004
Looks like we have a solitary male House Finch today. Kayt thinks she saw him yesterday. The Alaska bird book says they are “casual visitors”, so casual, in fact, that they have no picture. But he looks like Stan’s book and the All the Birds of North America, so looks like him. All the Birds shows a map with the western variety touching the Canadian border on the west coast, so seems like he might have come on up here. Kayt raised the specter of global warming as a causal factor; seems scary but totally possible. Another new visitor! A Boreal Chickadee visited this morning! Then this evening, during Ursa’s last potty break, Sine heard a Great Horned Owl.

April 9, 2004
Daylight Savings time, lots of sunshine and the big meltdown. Female Hairy Woodpecker munched on the suet feeder this morning, and a reddish/gray squirrel is devouring sunflower seeds it is finding on the ground. Bird activity at the feeders virtually ceased in early April, with the redpolls disappearing first, followed by all of the others. Only occasional visits from black-capped chickadees now.

May 1
We went for a drive towards Circle, driving 85 miles up Steese Highway to 12-Mile Pass. We stopped to check out a melt-pond at Cripple Creek Campground and saw three different ducks in pairs: Northern Pintail, Bufflehead, and Mallard. Kayt spotted a porcupine in a tree, and we both saw one on the edge of Old Nenana. Also saw a hawk or eagle soaring when we were on Old Steese.

May 2, 2004
Male Dark-eyed Junco on the ground feeding under the feeders. Occasional visits from black-capped chickadees.