Aki is in a foul mood. She growls at people walking on the other side of the street and sometimes at things I cannot see. Maybe she sees the ghosts of the old miners that once lived in the old Craftsman houses we pass on this walk through downtown Juneau. When I stop to photograph an eagle roosting in a nearby alder the little dog tugs her leash just as I click the shutter. Now I am in a bad mood. On the crooked steps that lead from Gastineau Ave. to tidewater, we hear a song sparrow’s clear, sweet song. I look for it in the step-side brush but find it just in front of me on the roof ridge of a shack. For once Aki does not tug as I click the shutter. The resulting photo shows a bird on the verge of a bad mood.

The calendar claims this is the first day of spring. The marshlands along Fish Creek seem to confirm it. This is rare for Alaska, where late-March is a usually a great time for snow sports. Like me, Aki seems to enjoy the warmth and other spring signs. There’s the busy chit-chit sound of nest building songbirds but I can’t spot them. Nor can I see the sapsucker worrying away at a hidden tree with its beak. Almost all the ducks in the marsh have collected in a small area along the creek, which is now swelling with incoming tidal waters. Mallards make up most of their numbers but I can make out the odd American wigeon among them. I think I also see a teal. Above the rest a quartet of killdeer fly. We don’t usually see those guys.

I bring Aki to the Eagle River woods hoping to see mountains, birds, and in the river maybe even seals. Today thanks to weather and the season, we see none of those things. Clouds occlude mountain views. Only a pair of bored ravens break the silence. The river meadows could be famine fields. Even the river mouth sandbars, exposed by a low tide, are empty. Normally I’d treasure the solitude and silence but today, I feel like the guy no one invited to the party.

Ducks and wind. That’s all Aki finds on the Sheep Creek Delta. She ignores the ducks, which is good and tries to ignore the wind. That 20-knot breeze blowing up channel numbs me and seems to pen down the ducks. A thin line of Barrow golden eyes hug the beach, forming an arrow that points at a confused raft of surf scoters, who work to keep their orange and black beaks pointed into the wind. In the creek shallows mallards walk and feed with their beaks in the water. A brace of the big ducks break into flight, the hen exposing iridescent-purple tertial feathers when she spreads her wings.

It feels like spring. Not the spring of Wordsworth’s daffodils. No robin sings, no tulip flowers open to the warming sun. Before entering the old growth, our only seasonal clues are warmish air and the lack of snow or ice. It’s too early in the calendar year to rule out a return of winter cold. But in the forest, we learn that its perennials don’t rely on a calendar to schedule the release of sap. The blueberry bushes have exploded into blossom. I find my first yellow skunk cabbage flower exposed on the forest floor. When we lived on the Kuskokwim River, we followed the old timers’ advice and waited to plant our garden until the birch leaves were as big as a squirrel’s ear. The elders trusted the trees to know when the danger of frost had past. But that was before the signs of climate change became incontrovertible. Can those elders still trust a birch to predict the weather?