I am wearing my winter coat, which makes me out of sync with the place where Aki and I walk. The crows and eagles are gathering nesting material. They know it is spring. So do the robins and their cousin thrush staking out territory with their sweet, sweet songs. Already the mallards have formed a nesting colony above the high tide line. 

            Aki reluctantly follows me onto tidelands exposed by the ebbing tide. We can hear eagles bickering while they watch us from their spruce top nest. At water’s edge, plovers and other waders walk stiffly on sticky mud. I almost step on a sea anemone. Exposed to the air, it has to keep its green tendril tucked up tight. In a hour, as the flooding tide washes over it, the anemone will release its tendrils. They will flutter like a tart’s skirt, seducing small fish to their deaths. 

            A large raft of feeding mallards panic into light when a bald eagle flies near and lands. The ducks dither in the air for a few seconds and then return to the ground to feed a few meters from the predator.