On this wet windy afternoon we find an almost empty parking lot at the trail head. In minutes we pass the only other people on the trail heading back to the their car. Aki has to content her self with the smells of animals that have gone before while the two humans in her life concentrate on safe passage of the icy trail.

There are sounds; the river gorged by a rising tide and winter wren song — a long monochromatic trill blown by an unskilled bosun. We see robins but they are too busy gathering nest material to sing. Nearer the beach, a nervous mass of Canada geese honk loud warnings across the river to each other that reach us when still in the woods. We watch then gather into tight groups on a dead tidal meadow and then, for no apparent reason, burst by twos into the air.

To her credit Aki ignores the geese and presses her paws into the back of my legs when I take too long framing a photograph of the big birds. Comical on the ground, the geese can overload your heart with beauty when in flight. I’d watch for hours but for Aki’s impatience and the biting wind. Seeking the shelter of a nearby second growth forest, we find a dark windless corridor of green leading to the beach. When the forest opens into a snowy meadow Aki crisscrosses it with tracks as she dances after her orange frisbee to the non-ending chorus of geese song.

We reach the beach where two kingfishers scold us from an overhanging tree. On this chilled grey day the belted birds are one of the few promises of true spring.