The sun only touches the highest mountain ridges on Douglas Island when we arrive at the the North Douglas forest trailhead. In pre-dawn dusk the forest birds sing their happiest songs. Today their music mixes with the comforting roar of surf on the nearby beach.

Aki leaps from the car into an empty parking lot. We expect calm conditions this time of day and are not disappointed. The trees lost their snow mantles in last weeks wind storm and small leaf buds  swell at the tips of blue berry branches. These could be more signs of an early spring.

We find the beach exposed by a minus tide, its frozen sand thawing in the full morning sun. Even the natural causeway to Shaman Island is dry. We take this rare opportunity to cross over, enjoying the iodine sea smells released by small waves breaking on both side of us. Ducks, scooters, gulls, and crows crowd the causeway and Shaman Island until we start down it. Without any encouragement from the dog or I, all but the gulls leave; sea birds into the water, crows rising in a dark cloud of hundreds into the blue sky.  The crow cloud splits in two and one half returns to their roost trees on the island.

Always just off shore of well traveled land, Shaman Island holds magic for anyone who has walked on it. On my last visit it was high summer and we watched hummingbirds feed on blood red columbine blossoms. Today it’s the crows, whose tracks complete with those of a river otter for space on the remaining snow cover. The crows complain until we recross a now shrinking causeway and find the rainforest rich in morning light.