On The Trails: Sandpiper, eagle, and orchid

A sharp-tailed sandpiper, with its distinguishing rufous cap, wandered to our coast from Siberia. (Photo by Betsy Fischer)

By Mary F. Willson

On a mild, almost-sunny day near the end of September, a stroll on the dike trail found a large bunch of shorebirds in one of the lagoons.

The tide was out and the birds were busily foraging. There were lots of dowitchers and pectoral sandpipers, but they couldn’t account for the excited cluster of Real Birders and photographers on the far side of the lagoon, with their backs to the sunshine to improve the viewing. Upon inquiry, one of those Real Birders told me that a sharp-tailed sandpiper was out there among the foragers. It takes a good eye, patience, and some training to sort out one little sandpiper in that crowd. Sharp-tailed sandpipers and pectoral sandpipers look quite similar in the off-season and they often travel together. Sharp-tails nest along the north coast of Siberia, typically migrating south to the region of Australia in winter; they wander over this way only rarely. 

Disappointed at the total lack of any visible songbirds — not even a song sparrow or a junco, I had a reward of a different sort. A big, broad-winged, dark bird caught my eye as it flew overhead and continued into the distance. All I could see was the back of this departing bird: an all-brown back and upper wing and a short-ish tail with a white band across the base. Not the usual bald eagle that we see so often. And not to be confused with a female or juvenile harrier, which have been migrating through here now, but which differ in having narrower wings, longer tails, and a white rump patch (among other things). I opened up a field guide and there it was: a juvenile golden eagle! These raptors sometimes nest in the mountains here and some that breed elsewhere in the state may pass through here on migration, but they are not common.

A Goodyera orchid bears young seed pods, which still have some brown, dead flowers attached to them. (Photo by Mary F. Willson)

A stroll on the Rainforest Trail in early October happily escaped the forecasted rain. Although most of the Goodyera orchids bore only dead brown flowers, we found several that had developing seed pods just a couple millimeters tall. Often called rattlesnake plantain, it has nothing to do, in reality, with either rattlesnakes (just folklore medicine) or plantains (an imagined similarity of leaves). It’s widespread in North America, often in coniferous forests. When the pods mature, they will send out myriad dust-like seeds to waft on whatever breezes can be found down in the understory, or occasionally may be dispersed by other means.

A recent wind-throw lay with roots exposed, showing how most of the major roots are shallow, so the root-wad is rather flat. I like looking at the exposed roots and following the colonization of small plants on the soil there. We found one such root wad with the potential for a variation on the usual patterns of succession. When the tree fell over and pulled its roots out of the ground, along with the roots came a substantial sample of the ground-level vegetation, not much disturbed, all on a "curtain" that hung over the edge of the root wad. If that hanging curtain can take hold anywhere, those little plants would have a head start on the pattern of succession.

Golden eagles sometimes nest here, usually in remote areas. (Photo by Bob Armstrong)

The beach was where we found some active critters. Yellowlegs foraged at the water’s edge, a raft of scoters drifted offshore, and a little herd of Harleys floated watchfully in between. A bunch of gulls loafed on a rocky point and a pair of seals cruised by, looking for food. A Lincoln’s sparrow stared at us from a perch atop a dead weed stalk, reluctant to move until it figured out we were (eventually) just passing by. A song sparrow dove into a heap of bent-over vegetation, flipping its long tail, not to be seen again. And a sexton beetle explored some of the high-tide wrack.

So, a quiet day on that trail, with no big excitement like vagrant sandpipers or wandering eagles, but interesting in its own way.

• Mary F. Willson is a retired professor of ecology. "On The Trails" appears periodically in the Juneau Independent.