Late October hikes, kinglets and critters
The nice little city trail to Lena Point wanders through the woods, finally emerging on an open point, where there's a bench and a great view of Favorite Channel. The first part of the official trail is boardwalk, very slippery if wet, especially when covered with soggy leaves. Much of this can be avoided by walking in along the chainlink fence (to the left of the marked trail), then veering right on an old road until it intersects the foottrail. At this junction, I noticed a large patch of an invasive geranium called Herb Robert, with its dainty purplish flowers still showing in late October. Much of the middle section of the trail is muddy and rooty.
Back
The lookout at the point is a terrific place to watch for whales. What we saw, however, on that rainy October day, was a procession of large, white jellyfish, slowly rising and sinking as they drifted north. A pair of cormorants sailed by below the cliffs. By a nearby reef was a gang of six or eight Steller sea lions. They dove repeatedly in the same spot, for at least 20 minutes, coming to the surface just to breathe. There must have been something good down there. A large flock of gulls rested on the water not far away, occasionally sending a scout to fly over the feeding sea lions in hopes that free lunch would become available. But whatever the sea lions were feeding on, it presumably wasn't some pelagic fish such as herring, which would frequently come to the surface when chased, and there the gulls could snatch them. So the scouts had no news to convey to the other gulls.
On the way back, we lucked into a mixed flock of brown creepers and golden-crowned kinglets, calling and foraging busily, each in its own way. The creepers did their characteristic pattern, hitching up a tree trunk and then flying to the base of another tree, where they started up again. They also crept along branches in the canopy. The kinglets flitted among the twigs high in the trees. Both these small birds stay around all winter, winkling tiny insects from the bark, all day long.
The birds were so high in the canopy most of the time that we heard them before we saw them. It's always a pleasure to find out I can still hear their high-pitched calls - especially the thin, high "sseeet-sseeet" of the brown creepers.
The understory was enlivened by luminous yellow and orange leaves of the native mountain ash. Even in the rain, they brightened our way, a welcome addition to the somber green of the conifer forest.
Some days later, snow arrived at sea level for the first time this year. The forest and bogs on the way up the Auke Nu trail were beautiful. The snow highlighted dark pockets back in the forest so we could see details never seen in summer. Gobbets of snow draped the red twigs of blueberry bushes and hung on hemlock branches. Red bunchberries peeked out of small snow-free windows on the sides of stumps.
Temperatures were warm enough that the thin layer of snow on the boardwalk offered a pretty slippery tread; ice cleats couldn't reach through the snow to grip the boards and the snow itself slid off the wood, taking one's foot with it. The middle section of the trail featured the usual collection of voracious mud holes that gobbled up unwary boots and legs. Those mud holes get wider every year, as hikers find detours around the original muck. Oh, for some loads of gravel to fill in the mucky pits!
There was about half a foot of snow near the John Muir cabin, enough for some in the group to wish for their skis. Lacking our skis, we settled for lunch, some trickless Halloween treats, and some silly versifying.
I heard several family parties of chickadees chattering in the treetops, along with a few small flocks of golden-crowned kinglets. But there was little other sign of wildlife. A quiet time of year, when many plants and some animals just sleep under the blanket of snow.
One of the small critters that stays active in winter is our red-backed vole (for those who don't know, voles are a bit like chubby, short-legged mice). How do such small beasts manage in cold weather? Even the plant food they eat is cold, so it takes some extra energy to warm it up to body temperature (this can add 10 percent or more to the basic energy needs). The voles have several means of coping with the cold. Most of their activity takes place under the snow, which blankets them from the coldest air temperatures. They huddle together in communal nests and help keep each other warm. They lose weight in fall, so total food requirements are lower, but they also begin to put on brown fat, which produces more heat than white fat. When this is insufficient, the voles can begin to shiver, which generates more heat, but this is kind of a last resort. They build up a special protein in the muscles that carries extra oxygen to the muscles, and this allows them to increase their metabolic rate and to increase the efficiency of shivering. It's not simple, being small and winter-active!
• Mary F. Willson is a retired professor of ecology.