Category Archives: alders

Quiet Down

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My free weather app predicted a few hours of dry, if very grey skies this morning. Aki was open to the idea so we headed over to Sandy Beach for a recon mission. I was hoping to spot eagles and perhaps some ducks, newly arrived here from the coast. But the scene was almost totally empty of birds, dogs, or people. 

            We figured out the cause of emptiness just after we arrived. A man protected by tree harvest gear was sawing down a series of large alder trees. It was slow going. The lumberman had already trimmed off the tree’s branches. Now he had to cut off the top five feet of each tree, move down the remining trunk the same amount, and repeat the process. His saw could be heard over the whole trail system during our visit. This is probably why we had the place to ourselves.

            We spent most of the visit on the beach itself, where the saw sound was almost tolerable. No eagles perched on beach side alders, no opinionated king fishers tried to chase us away. There were small groups of gulls feeding nearby on sand bars. They never responded to our presence or even flew off when Aki walked within a few feet of them. We had to leave them their domain, free of risk until the alder logger drove away. 

Heavy Rain

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Okay. The trail is flooded. Every leaf is weighed down by rain. Aki doesn’t mind. She dashes up and down one of the few still-open trails, filling her memory with fading scents. She doesn’t notice that the surface of every little pond is shattered by rain drops.

            I wasn’t expecting anyone else on the trail. Then an old man and his young husky dog appear. As soon as I spot them, I move twenty feet off the trail. The hiker leads his husky twenty-five feet in the opposite direction. Aki dashes it to meet and greet the big dog. In response, the husky pup’ owner shouts out that he parked his bicycle a quarter-mile up the trail.

            Later, after finding our common trails flooded out, I tell Aki that we will head home. The hiker, now riding his bike, suddenly moves past us. In a few seconds he and his big dog reach the flooded trail. After chanting his desire for a floatation device, he dismounts and pushes his bike into the flooded trail. Aki and I use one of the few remaining paths to return to the car.

Close Call

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It might be the largest porcupine I’ve ever seen. Just a few meters away, it waddles towards the protection of an alder thicket. I’ve just passed through a similar thicket. Luckily, Aki has stayed back to check out a smell, probably the scent of this huge porkie.

            The last time Aki ran into a porcupine, it decorated her face with quills. This time, Aki’s luck holds. After giving the porcupine’s hideout a wide birth, we continue on towards Nugget Falls.  Shafts of sunlight slide from the cloud cover to illuminate parts of the glacier or Mt. McGinnis. 

            When a shaft of light hits the ground where we walk, stop, closes my eyes, and wait for the sun to warm my face. But it’s too late in the summer for that to happen. Now is the time for sunlight to strengthen the colors of fall. 

Obvious Birds, Noisy Seal

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Clouds took the sun away yesterday. But they won’t deliver the rain until tomorrow. Without rain gear, Aki and I are searching a narrow muskeg meadow for berries. This is a scouting, not a harvesting mission. Although I manage to find a handful of ripe berries to feed the little dog. 

            Birds, as obvious as mosquitos, flit and fly through the surrounding bushes. A dark-eyed junko and two juvenile robins land on the trail itself. The fly off when we approach to nearby trees. Some of the birds must be eating blues berries. The trail boards are spotted with blue-covered scat. 

            The trail leads to a beach, which is as empty as the sky is gray. Something starts slapping the water. When the slapping stops, a harbor seal swims past. It must be herding silver salmon heading toward the mouth of their spawning stream. Later we will cross the stream and spot a swirl in the water caused by a salmon’s dorsal fin. At one salmon escape the hunting seals. 

Rich Colors

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The rain forest is enjoying a civilized summer. We get good soakings of rain followed by days of party cloudy skies. Gastineau Meadows is benefiting from the Goldilocks weather. The humble willows and alders lining the meadow trail exhibit greens and yellows so rich they could give Aki a stomach ache if she consumed colors.

            I click my camera’s shutter button and click again, as if each click is a spoon of chocolate gelato heading toward my mouth. Normally Aki would object to the delays caused when I stop to take just another picture. But today, she shows great patience. 

            The little dog even joins me when I walk off the gravel trail to get an up close view of the meadow wildflowers. Charged with sun and rain, Labrador tea plant have pushed their blossom balls over a foot in the air. Chocolate lilies and British tobacco (buckbeans) do the same. 

Rusting Away

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The last time Aki and I circled Moose Lake, yellows and browns dominated. This morning, all is green. The new leaves display a crayon box worth of green colors. The trail is perfumed by balm of Gilead (cottonwood) sap. 

            We take a back trail through the troll woods and stop at a break in the trees to admire the reflection of Mt. McGinnis in the lake. It would be perfect if not for the expanding rings made by feeding trout. 

            Before the trees colonized the moraine, a person tired of owning a 1930’s era sedan abandoned it here. Alders started to pioneer the moraine gravel. Their fallen leaves mulched into soil. Over the years it became rich enough to support the growth of cottonwood trees and spruce. The whole time the old sedan had rusted until now it is only an outline of its original self. But there is enough of its bulbous fender left to provide Aki shelter from the rain. 

Rite of Spring

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A porcupine the size of a small pig waddles through trailside alders. The top of its tail and a large patch of its rear are bare. Before being attacked by a dog or the other predator sharp-tipped quills covered the bald spots. What ever attacked the porcupine is still trying to rid its muzzle of quills. 

            Aki starts to wander toward the porcupine, nose to the ground. In a few seconds she will spot movement and dash over to the Alaskan hedgehog. Seconds after that I’ll be pulling quills from her face. Sacrificing a chance for a great photo, I drop the camera and grab the dog. Together we watch the porcupine force itself into a blue berry thicket. The color of its quills is an exact match to the branches of the still-bare blue berry bushes, so it appears to disappear.

            We are on a mountain meadow. Snow still covers much of the trail. That’s why I brought the little dog here. It’s one of our rites of spring that requires a warm day after a cold night that sets up the snow for walking. When we reach the snow, the poodle-mix does a few donuts and then rubs her face in the white stuff.  She shakes her face, sending wet snow flying. Some of it ends up on my pants, which is a small price to pay. As my pants dry, I enjoy the meadow ponds capture the surrounding snow-covered mountains.

A little quiet

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Bird song has dropped in the Troll Woods. The wrens are still going to town. But I haven’t heard a thrush’s blurry whistle since we left the car. Our sunny streak is continuing so I feel like singing, even if the birds had gone silent. 

            Aki and I circle several small lakes, seeing no one. Since the Covid crisis, I tend to choose the lesser used trails. The little loyal little dog doesn’t object, even though it means she rarely can do a meet and greet with another dog. She still stops often to check out interesting scents. I had to wait a minute for her to finish checking out a smell near the beavers’ lodge.

            Usually sunny weather brings the wind to riffle the Troll Woods lakes. But today, only the faintest breeze flows through the woods. Each lake is a crystal mirror reflecting mountains and glaciers. 

Winners and Losers

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Clusters of emerging water lily leaves look like whales breaching on the surface of the beaver pond. Some leaves have already flattened out on the water to gather the summer’s energy.  Strong morning light makes the others translucent. 

The tail slap of a nervous beaver sounds on the other side of the pond. Above the pond, a male woodpecker hops erratically up and down an overhanging alder tree. It’s a red-breasted sapsucker, not the three-toed woodpecker I was expecting. Last summer the three-toed raised a brood of chicks in a nearby spruce snag. I saw the male feeding near where the sapsucker is staring at me.  Each season has its winners and losers.    

We’ve been enjoying an early stretch of sunny, warm weather, which has drawn campers to beaches, like the one that Aki and I will soon reach on the trail. When a family of campers approaches, I grab Aki and retreat a few meters off the trail. In a few minutes the little dog and I reach their campsite and find an eagle and raven checking it out for scraps. 

These campers had totally extinguished their fire before leaving.  Two days ago, sixteen acres of forest and grass-covered dunes burned near Boy Scout Beach, a place Aki and I like to visit. We have seen bears digging up the meadow grass there to harvest chocolate lily roots.  The place was crowded with Canada geese the last time we walked over the dunes. Now the geese and bears will have to find somewhere else to feed. 

Silence

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Wind-driven rain slammed into the car as we drove out to the northern end of Douglas Island. The rain but not the wind stopped when we arrived at the trailhead. When a few minutes down the trail we flushed a varied thrush from the trail. It landed on a nearby alder branch and gave the little dog and I a hard stare. That’s when I notice the total absence of bird song. On our last visit, varied thrush, like the one looking at us, filled the air with their blurry whistles. Wrens and kinglets added their signature songs. This morning, not one bird, or even a squirrel tried to be heard over the sound of the wind.  I normally savor silence. It’s hard to come by, even in the rain forest. But this absence of bird song is chilling. Trying not to think about Carson’s Silent Spring, I follow Aki down the switchback trail that leads the beach. 

            At forest’s edge, we hear a thrush whistle and then the sweet song of a robin. The resident rafts of golden eye ducks and surf scoters work the offshore waters. Two eagles fly interlocking circles over Shaman Island. A song sparrow searches clumps of greening beach grass for food. Another sparrow sings out from inside an alder thicket. 

            Everything seems normal on the beach until a red breasted sap sucker lands on an exposed alder trunk. With jerky movements it moves up the tree, not stopping to hammer it with its powerful beak. It’s the first time I’ve seen any woodpecker land on an alder, let alone one so exposed.