This water ouzel and I are having a moment like Annie Dillard describes in “Living with Weasels.” The plump little bird stares at me. I, through the camera viewfinder, stare at it. When Dillard locked eyes with a weasel, they were both “stunned into silence.” It was like two lovers, or deadly enemies, meeting unexpectedly on an overgrown path. The weasel dived for cover when one of them blinked.

My soul gaze with the water ouzel didn’t break the rhythm of its bobbing in and out of the pond water. I doubt if I had known of the stare down if not for the evidence provided by the camera while it recharged for the next photograph. While Aki, who showed no interest in the ouzel, sniffs for sign of yesterday’s dog traffic, I wonder how much more I might see if I wasn’t distracted by my camera. Minutes later the camera battery dies, allowing me to answer the question.

Under full sun, Aki and I walk down a rain-rinsed trail to the mouth of Fish Creek. The sounds of bickering crows, an out-of-sorts eagle, cautious mallards, displaced Canada geese, and the 9:20 jet from Anchorage coasting to landing in front of the glacier—all seem too sharp, too clear. On the now exposed tidelands, too brilliant light spotlights the hundreds of gulls that hunt and peck for food. Even the green channel marker hams it up.

Hoping to find some snow for her to run on, I drive Aki into the mountains. Ice is already melting off the meadow ponds and most of the muskeg is already bare. In the rain we search for snow. When we spot a small patch, Aki dashes to it and slips into a slide. She plays like she is trying to jam a month of winter play into a few minutes.

If we hadn’t lingered over breakfast, if the onshore flow had held off a few more hours, if the globe isn’t warming, we could enjoy the return of winter longer. But it is already raining on this mountain meadow. But, Aki finds enough snow to slide in as she chases after her Frisbee. Rain has yet to wash away the tracks of a coyote that crossed ours more than a half-dozen times. We can still make out sign of a squirrel’s quick dash from tree cover and tracks of snowshoe hares. One of the hares crossed the trail just before we arrived so we know it survived the coyote.

It’s 12:30 in the afternoon but no sun reaches the little dog or I in Gold Creek valley. We stood in eye squinting light just minutes ago. The sun just dropped before a spruce-lined ridge, backlighting a dozen of the tall trees so they glow like Greek gods. While Aki divines meaning in signs left by other dogs, I think of Orfeo. Aki missed out on the local performance of that opera by Monteverdi. The gods portrayed cast down favors and torment like today’s sun distributes light on the south-facing side of Mount Juneau.