Back in June the run of red salmon in the Copper River this year was predicted to be poor. And the Miles Lake sonar showed that this was indeed the case, so the Department of Fish and Game closed the season very soon after opening it. And then they kept it closed for most of June and July, with just five open periods of 24-96 hours. The king salmon run was reported to be good, and those who went in June generally caught more than they could keep (1 each). But red fishing was poor.
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Category Archives: Alaska
An Unusual Absence—Where are the Redpolls?
Normally at this time of year our bird feeder is packed with redpolls. They can usually be counted on to empty the thing daily, and we actually ration them so we don’t go through too many forty-pound bags of sunflower seed kernels.
But this year is dramatically different. They’re completely absent. They were scarce early in the winter, but I haven’t heard one for months. This absence became more and more puzzling as the normal late-January visits didn’t appear and the February and March hordes didn’t show either.
But then I realized that I hadn’t seen a single birch seed shadow all winter. These are common in normal years, when even a light breeze drops birch seed all over the snow.* A few years ago we had an astonishingly high birch seed year, but this year it looks like practically none were produced. And so I finally realized why we had no redpolls this winter. I am not sure what the cause is, but it is the first time in our 22 winters’ experience here that it’s occurred. We miss the little buggers.
* A five-year study published in 1972 found an average annual production in birch forest around Fairbanks of 23,303 seeds per square meter. This is why birch seed shadows are usually so visible all winter as these seeds periodically fall.
25 March update: Well, the redpolls read my post and sent a few emissaries. If I’d known things could work this way, I would have posted this in January. A small flock of four stopped by while we were eating lunch. Rose and I just started laughing. It’s amazing how excited you can get to see what’s usually an abundant bird.
Cornices
With our heavy snowfalls this winter we’ve seen some marvelous sights in the ways it accumulates. I took a few pictures.
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The Quasimodo Pile Goes Down—Son of a Birch!
I’ve been taking advantage of our cold weather to split the most ugly, cantankerous, gnarly, and twisted pieces of wood that you can imagine.
Boy, have there been some tough ones. I wrote about the glory of winning in battle over these mean, twisted, miserable chunks of firewood last winter. It’s still one of the truly wonderful parts of our -30 to -40 F cold snaps. The added brittleness of the wood usually makes these stubborn pieces of firewood split fairly easily.
But this year I have one tree that is just killing me. Every damned piece of this thing has been a fight.
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Breaking Trail
We had a good dump of snow last week on top of rain (it should not rain here in January). Behind that weather system came normal cold—cold that felt abnormal because it’s been so warm this season.
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