London, Paris, Fairbanks
A quick continuation of my previous post on the animals that I see on my walks and rides through the neighbourhood.
The vegetation is dominated by boreal forest (taiga), and late summer and autumn bring out the mushrooms and berries. Of the former there is a confusing variety, which either deserves a post of its own or a lot more study, or both. Suffice it to say that early in the season, Quaking Aspen Boletes (Leccinum aurantiacum - Espenrotkappen in German) were plentiful. They should be edible, but I’ve seen reports of stomach upsets caused by Leccinum mushrooms and would not use them before having gone out with an experienced local. Berries are a different matter. I seem to have missed the blueberry season, but the next wave of berries is just rolling in. Highbush Cranberries, genus Viburnum, aren’t cranberries at all. Many texts put them with the Honeysuckles (DE: Geißblattgewächse), but there seems to have been a recent reshuffling of classification. Apparently, there are three very similar shrubs of unequal culinary value, but the ones here taste lovely, though they are acidic and have a rather large pit. As for Lowbush Cranberries, these are called Lingonberries elsewhere, and to my delight are turning out to be the same species as the German Preiselbeere (Vaccinium vitis-idaea).
As for animals, Dark-eyed Juncos are all over the place, and I either saw another type of sparrow the other day or a juvenile Junco. They intermingle with Black-capped Chickadees and Orange-crowned warblers. The Sandhill Cranes are already preparing to leave, and there’s a Crane Festival at the Creamer’s Field Migratory Wildfowl Refuge this weekend. Seeing a Sandhill Crane stalk along our road and take off right in front of me was a highlight of my morning recently.
New bird sightings:
- While fishing with Melinda at the Chena River west fork, we saw an American Dipper (DE: Grauwasseramsel), a beautiful aquatic thrush-sized grey bird.
- Yesterday out at the 48 mile pond on Chena Hot Springs Road, two ducks that I believe to be Lesser Scaups.
Indeed, yesterday offered a high point of the last months’ wildlife sightings, up there with the caribou that circled my co-workers and me when out in the field on the tundra of the Arctic North Slope: Two moose cows that we could watch for many minutes, feeding on the other side of a pond, swimming across it and then making their way along the edge of a second pond. For odd reasons (read: Facebook), we named them Merriam and Webster. I only had my phone camera and it was getting dark, so here’s a terrible “find the moose” (that’s plural) picture:
