Rains had persisted for days and days, with no end in sight. Nevertheless, a friend and I took off up the trail and, much to our surprise, the sun peeked out and no rain fell until we were home again!

June always brings lots of small nuggets of natural history to our attention — it might be a junco nest next to a busy trail but sheltered deep in a cubbyhole under an overhanging tuft of long grass, or a patch of devil’s club stems well off any human trail but with every single bud neatly removed, or terns bringing fish to their voracious chicks, or a bear, far up in a cottonwood, breaking branches to eat the maturing pods.

Here are three vignettes that I found very satisfying:

A Juneau Jazz and Classics concert in the chapel at the Shrine of Saint Therese provided some extra entertainment, in addition to wonderful music. To the consternation of audience and musicians, a hummingbird flew in through the mistakenly open door and zoomed straight up to the high windows in front.

There it fluttered futilely against the glass for long minutes. The musicians stopped playing a Brahms string quartet to ask if anything could be done about this distraction. Nothing practicable was available, so the music went on, many more minutes, to the end of the piece.

Near the start of the East Glacier Trail, a flurry of activity caught my eye. Creeping closer, I saw two male juncos in major conflict. Usually, male birds settle territorial border battles by visual displays and songs. But that wasn’t enough for these guys, who were going at it hammer and tongs. Fluttering up and down, chest to chest, pecking each other and buffeting with wings, until finally one rode the other down to the ground and held it there, whacking it for almost a minute (that’s a long time, if you are the whack-ee). Then they separated.