Monthly Archives: October 2019

Red Berries

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After the sun climbs above channel fog, Aki joins her other human and I on a muskeg meadow in full fall color. While her humans picked cranberries, the little poodle-mix ran back and forth between us, frustrated that we won’t respond to her urging to herd up. She doesn’t understand that berry picking is a solitary pursuit. Keeping our eyes on the muskeg, we must wander where the berries take us. 

I can understand Aki’s confusion. Stooped low with hands plucking berries from their mossy beds, we could be mistaken for grazers.   

            After an hour, Aki relaxes and investigates interesting smells. I stop thinking about the little dog until four eagles appear in the sky above us. They join a pair of ravens circling the meadow. Soon a magpie flies over our heads and lands a few hundred yards away. I look down and spot the naked leg bone of a deer. It’s the clue needed to solve the mystery of the birds. A hunter butchered a deer on the meadow, leaving enough on the ground to drawn in the birds. 

Ghost Fish

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It’s mid-morning on the Sheep Creek Delta. The ebb tide has sucked the delta almost dry. The creek, charged by recent rain, makes its noisy way to Gastineau Channel. Aki, why are all these eagles here? The little dog ignores my question and the eagles. Most of the big birds are creek side. One stands in the water trying to wrangle something onto a gravel bar. 

            The streams gallomps and I look for the source of the sound, expecting to see a late arriving salmon splashing back into the creek. No fish ghosts along the stream bottom. The spawn is gone. So, for a few seconds, is my little dog. With a dozen eagles within a few hundred yards of me, this raises concern. I spot the poodle-mix fifty meters away, sniffing a clump of beach grass. No eagle stirs to flight. I’m back with the little guy before one does. 

             We inadvertently flush a water dipper. It flies low and lands across the stream. Something in the stream must be keeping it and the eagles here. For the dipper it could be insects or small fish. The eagles prefer salmon. It doesn’t matter if they are dead or alive. Maybe these eagles filled up on salmon carcasses that wash up on the delta. Or maybe they have been hammering invisible salmon. 

Sun Break

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The weatherman promised Aki and I a sun break this morning but warned of heavy rain arriving just after the dinner hour. After that it will be rain and rain for days. How should we squander the promised light, little dog? Thinking that the sun will arrive at the higher mountain meadows first, I drive Aki up to one of our favorites. Fog-like clouds obscured the mountaintops when we arrive, threatening to make the weatherman a liar. Then a perfect circle of silver light begins to burn through the clouds. Maybe the man told us the truth.

             Last week the meadow was a carpet of bright yellows, reds, and oranges. It now looks faded in the gray light but starts to brighten as the sun burns its way through the cloud cover.

Aki initially refuses to follow me off a gravel trail and onto the wet muskeg.  She’d rather keep her paws dry, thank you very much. Ignoring the little anchor, I squelch my way deeper onto the meadow, pull a small plastic container from my pocket, and begin dropping bog cranberries into it. Each firm little berry makes a plopping sound when it hits the bottom of the container. Having developed a taste for wild cranberries, Aki is drawn onto the meadow by the sound. Soon she is nuzzling berries from my palm. By the time the sun has driven off the clouds I am picking to fill her stomach, not the little plastic container.   

Lights Going Out

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Yesterday I was surprised at the lack of waterfowl on the Fish Creek Delta. Today, I was more surprised to see mix rafts of mallards and Canada geese feeding in the shallows near the mouth of Peterson Creek. Further down the beach four harlequin ducks plucked young mussels from barely-submerged rocks. Soon they will be joined by golden eyes and the other winter residents of Fritz Cove.

            I have mixed feelings about these developments. It means a richer fall and winter for fans of water birds like the parti-colored harlequins. It also means a ramping up of the fall bird hunting season. The sound of shotgun blasts will once again mix with the sarcastic cackles of mallards and eagle screams. 

            The return of the winter birds usually accompanies the fading of fall colors in beachside woods. Yellow devil’s club leaves now brighten the dark under the forest canopy like reading lamps in a college library. I don’t look forward to the day in a week or two, when those lights go out. 

Gone to Rest

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No salmon swirl the surface of Fish Creek Pond or leap from it into the air. No scavengers bicker over salmon scraps on the pond beach. The time for that passed when last week’s high water swept the remaining pink salmon back into the sea. Last week three eagles, the little dog and I watched a dozen mergansers plop onto the lake. This morning only one of the redheaded duck works the pond. It looks to be a day of ones. 

             We will see several eagles, but all but one will be roosting alone. One gull will squawk and glide alone over the exposed tidal flats. I will watch a single dark eyed junco bounce on a thin elderberry branch. Toward the end of the walk we will spy on a dipper dancing in the pond shallows. Then we will watch the merganser abandon its monopoly on the pond.  

            Like merganser and the other loners, Aki and I don’t mind having the place to our selves—a land gone to rest after the salmon spawn. Gone, for now, are the clouds of eagles, crows, ducks, and gulls. Here, until the winter ducks return, is a place dominated by peace and the persistent wind.

Crisp

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No car was needed to reach the starting point for this morning’s walk. Nor did we need rain gear. The little dog and I just walked out the front door and headed toward Basin Road. The well-painted Craftsmen homes on that ancient Juneau street sparkled in the morning sun. Late summer flowers still bloomed in gardener boxes. If this weather continues, they will soon fall to our first hard frost. 

            We cross the old wooden trestle bridge and head toward the Perseverance Trail. I was hoping to enjoy the Gold Creek cottonwoods in full fall color. But last week’s windstorm stripped all the taller trees of leaves. Those that remain had already dulled to a pale yellow. Dramatic lighting made up for the faded colors. Light just skimming over the shoulder of Mt. Roberts splashed the bare-trunked trees with harsh light.