Tiny Rugged Mountains

The choice of locations for the survey I was helping out with was based on geology. There wasn't time/money to survey the whole wilderness area so places with different rock types were chosen. This location was chosen for its carbonate (limestone/marble sorts of rock).

The rock there seems to wear away relatively easily. There were vertical channels worn into the face of the rock, presumably warn down over the years by water runoff. There were also deep narrow crevices here and there which made walking on the snow above it interesting - wondering if there might be a crevasse beneath your feet.

Much of the rock was quite smooth, but there were also many places where little jagged peaks would form, looking much like miniature mountain ranges. These were fun to see, but could be a little painful when climbing up the slope. I'm not sure why these mountains formed when the rock around them was so smooth. One theory I have is that there are mineral imperfections and the mountains are formed when a harder rock underlies the carbonate.

Fawn

While visiting Alaska the past couple of weeks I had the good fortune to help a friend out with some survey work in the wilderness area on Chichagof. We saw quite a few cool things and the weather was even pretty nice a few hours out of the days we were there.



Probably my favorite experience of the trip was seeing this fawn. I don't recall having ever seen a fawn in the wild like this - still spotted and everything. We were just walking along through the woods when Kitty stumbled and exclaimed "Oh!" Apparently not having seen the fawn until she had almost literally stumbled upon it. It was quite well camouflaged and still. It laid there until just after I took this picture from a couple feet away. Then it wobbily got up and galloped off. Hopefully not so far that it got separated from its mother. I think that they use at least some vocal communication to find each other.

I think the fawns in Washington must have been born quite a bit earlier than this one, but the season was quite a bit later in this location. There was still quite a bit of snow on the ground in places at around 1000 foot elevation and much of the vegetation was still maturing.

Track of the Week 15

Setting: Mid April 2008 Sitka, Alaska. These tracks were moving parallel to the water along the beach.

1. What species?

These are fairly classic mustelid tracks with the 5 bulbous(ish) toes in an arc like that and heel pad with one "wing" larger. Sometimes they look a lot like canine tracks, particularly if the small toe 1 doesn't show up. Based on the size and location we can narrow down to mink (Neovison vison)

2. What Gait?

It is moving in a lope, notice the somewhat larger 1st and 3rd tracks as well as how the 2nd and 4th have more space between the toes and heel pad. This indicates that the feet fall in a front hind front hind pattern.

3. Which feet are which?

As mentioned in the answer to question 2, the feet fall in a front hind front hind pattern. Lefts and rights can be determined by which side of the center line the feet fall, also because the lowest toe is the inner toe - assuming all 5 toes show up, the inner toe is a little difficult to see in the first two tracks.

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