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The Daily Bucket - solstice snow, swans and slides [1]
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Date: 2022-12-27
Trumpeter swans in snowy bay
December 20-22, 2022
Salish Sea, Pacific Northwest
Before the snow melted a few days ago, the seashore was magical in a rare way. It’s unusual for us to get any significant snow along the shore, and when we do it’s fairly brief, less than a week, as it was this time. I made a point of tramping through foot-deep snow to visit two beaches near my house.
The walk down to the beach was pretty nice too, on paths and back roads. Solstice day itself was partly sunny; the days before and after were cloudy.
This turkey family lives in the neighborhood. The tom started hanging around with Mrs and her kids about a month ago when he realized she knows all the best foraging spots (and households to cadge seed from, like ours).
Douglas fir cones have “mousetails”
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Great Blue heron lands on high branch. It may be the youngster who’s been patrolling the dock all summer and fall. Crown feathers now white.
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Pacific Madrona (Arbutus menzeisii), a broadleaf evergreen
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You can see how far up the high tide goes, by the melted snow zone (aka intertidal zone)
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I took this photo at noon on the solstice. See how low the sun is! (that patch of brightness directly above the little island, due south).
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A dark skirt of intertidal rings the steep rock just offshore. The beach in this other bay had some strange clumps of snow in the intertidal.
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A closer view shows the clumps to be irregular plates of snow. Some have been washed into the water where they are melting. This bay gets less wind and swell than the other one, where the intertidal snow was washed away.
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Buffies in foreground. Our boat Elansa with snow on her deck. The snow depth on the dock is considerably less than onshore; likely the “warmth” of the water directly below has melted it. Water temp = 48°F vs land temp = 20-30°F
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I’m always scanning the water looking for ducks, who often have a mix of black and white. Thought this was a couple of ducks until I zoomed in on the white. Nope hahaha. Snow on drifting bull kelp.
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Swans have been rare migrants this winter, sadly. The summer was so dry and lasted so far into fall the usual wetlands, like Otto’s marsh, where swans winter here on the island, have yet to fill up. No wetlands, no swans. They might have been dispersed on private ponds I have no access to. But those froze over last week when temperatures dropped below freezing, even in daytime. It was about 15° for a couple of days.
What’s a swan to do? Well, on the solstice nine swans flew in to this bay while I was walking there. It’s rare to see swans in saltwater here. A solstice treat for me.
Swans, and ?
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It was a cold and windy day, and after spending 20 minutes or so watching the swans paddling around and trying out the eelgrass and seaweed in shallow water by the shore, I was about to head home to warm up my hands when I realized there were some odd tracks in the snow along the bank. At this end of the beach the bank is higher and slopes down steeply to the beach. The tracks were from somebody sliding down the bank. Not human though — no footwear, sled, saucer, ski or pole marks. Almost certainly otters had been playing here.
This slide looks like multiple otters played here. I wish I could have seen them but of course if I’d been around, they wouldn’t have.
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The local Canada geese appeared to be following the swans out into the harbor. Unlike the local geese though, swans are peripatetic. They were gone the next day.
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