Category Archives: Bald Eagle

Mates

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Fog is easier to see on a beach but you can discern its presence inside a thick forest. Aki and I have no problem detecting the way it thickens the air in the Treadwell forest.  She pays it little attention. Fog doesn’t diminish the rich smells she searches for in the forest.

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The little dog is slow to follow me from the forest down a grassy trail to Sandy Beach. As I wait for her to catch up I spot the resident pair of eagles on top of the old mine ventilation shaft. They appear to be gossiping, although with their profiles softened by fog it is hard to tell. More than one person has noticed how eagle pairs interact like long-suffering human couples who keep together for the sake of the kids. One is almost always scolding the other. The one receiving the dressing down will bow and shrink like a penitent. This pair looks like a couple of drinkers leaning toward each other over their Alaskan beers.

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Aki finally pushes through the splash-zone grass to join me on the beach and spots a canine friend waiting for her. Even though they are both over ten human years old, they chase each other over the sand like puppies. Now the eagles have something to gossip about.

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They Are Back

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The birds are back little dog. Looking up from a scent spot that has occupied her attention for the last minute, Aki gives me a “Dah” look.  She might think I am referring to the adult bald eagle that had been feeding a few feet away when we reached the Shaman Island beach. The big bird flew off to a glacier erratic on the other side of Peterson Creek and landed. From that vantage point and safe from poodles, it waits for us to leave so it can return to its feast.

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No Aki, I am not referring to that eagle or the other one roosting nearby. Look there. I point toward the island where a small raft of harlequin ducks are performing the synchronized swimming routine their kind performs when feeding. All summer the harlequins have been hanging out on the outer coast with red-breasted mergansers and the other fish ducks. The little bay has been lonely in their absence.  It’s good to have them back. Closer to the beach, a smaller raft of widgeons have their heads in the water feeding.  These guys must be heading south.

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We passed other signs of fall along the forest trail that we used to get to this beach.  The leaves of wild crabapple trees and blueberry bushes were in high autumn colors. Some of the devil’s club and skunk cabbage were yellowing. And the downy woodpeckers that seem to only appear at the change of seasons, were hammering away at old growth spruce and hemlock trees.

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Party On

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Looks like the party is over little dog. Aki and I just crossed Fish Creek , which now appears to be empty of salmon. No eagles roost in creek side trees. We can’t even spot the pair of squabbling ravens that usually patrol the creek’s gravel bars.

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The kingfisher that guards the pond is still here. When it spots us, the little bird flies off to give the alarm. It is time, I think, for the land to go to rest for winter. Then two silver salmon, sides spawning-red, leap about the surface of the pond.  An eagle screams. The party is still on.

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The eagle doesn’t bother Aki. She stares at the water as if willing the salmon to jump again. When they don’t she trots around the pond to where the trail climbs onto a low dike. There, a great blue heron surprises both of us by flying out of a nearby tree and settling onto the limb of a spruce just twenty feet away.

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Aki seems glued to the spot on the trail where she first spotted the heron. When I call her she looks in the big bird’s direction as if to say, are you crazy, that thing is ten times my size. I could tell her that the heron hunts small fish, not small dogs. But from past experience I know that she won’t move. I’ll have to carry her to the perceived safety of the woods.

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Aki Wins

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Aki charges ahead on a side slope trail through the woods. But she agrees to wait with some impatience, when I am slowed by the narrower bits, especially those that form the lip of a precipice. I could be mad at the little dog. We are only on this bluff trail along the lower Mendenhall River because she had refused to walk any further on the flat beach path.

 

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We had to pass through an old growth forest to reach the beach. The little dog threw on the brakes just after we left the woods. Our presence had scared off a large raft of mallards that had sheltered during the night on a nearby side channel.  Maybe the ducks’ noisy exit spooked my poodle-mix.  As I carried Aki down the beach, more ducks and some shore birds panicked into flight. With my arms full, I could only watch them move out of the camera range.

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Only one eagle watched us pass from the very top of a spruce tree. When I set Aki down so I could photograph the big bird it looked down with what appeared to be distain.  Picking up the recalcitrant pooch, I carried her past the eagle tree and around the rocky outcropping that blocks beach passage when the tide is high. More mallards and a large cloud of gulls flew off.

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To give the little dog and the birds a break, I brought Aki to the edge of the woods where a steep path leads to a trail made by those who needed to access the beach at high tide.  The trail passes through a weird sculpture garden of eagle trees, mushroom covered stumps, and boulders wrapped in the snake-like roots of trees that had grown up over them. Aki didn’t mind walking under eagle trees or stepping over white splats of their guano or the feathers they shed while taking flight.

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Fireweed

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We just said goodbye to two of other’s humans at the airport. They will be back in a few months. Now we are on a trail that traces the outline of the runway. It’s noisy with jets and prop planes taking off and landing. Some of the prop planes have floats that allow for water take offs and landings. One of these is just lifting off from the floatplane lake, carrying mail and passengers to one of the rain forest villages without a runway.

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The ebb tide has reduced the river and exposed large sand bars. An adult bald eagle lands on one of these. It starts to head over to a dark object and then stops, acting like a burglar afraid of being caught in the act. It freezes until we move, starts again and then stops when we stop. After a minute of this the eagle slow walks over to the dark spot, which turns out to be a fish, wraps in its talons, and slowly lifts skyward.

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All the trailside fireweed plants have gone to seed. Most of their seed down still clings to their stalks, ready to ride on the next strong wind. While I try to take a picture of the white down complimenting the red and orange fireweed leaves, Aki tears down the trail after another of her humans. Then she turns and runs full speed back to me. Sometimes all four of her tiny feet are off the ground.

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We Could Be in Italy

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It could be the ruins of an Italian villa if not for the wild Alaska plants that encroach on its portico. Devil’s club leaves in fall color fills in for the Mediterranean sun.  Drooping limbs of an elderberry take the slot that grapes would in an Italian garden. But there is no wine manufactured here in these remains of the Treadwell steam plant.

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Aki wants to stay in the woods that have grown up around the ruins. I would rather check out the beach. We compromise and hang about in the woods for a bit longer before slipping through a barrier strip of beach grass and drop onto Sandy Beach.

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One of the resident bald eagles, it’s feathers all ahoo, sulks on top of the old ventilator shaft. Two local ravens snatch up dog treats on the beach. With round nuggets in their beaks, they strut across the sand as if posing for a “Raven Brings Light To The World” sculpture. Once the first raven tricked a shaman into releasing the sun from a bentwood box so it could illuminate the land. These two ravens have much lower expectations. They just intend to enjoy a free meal in the light won by their ancestor.

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Breaking The Calm

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It’s peaceful in the rain forest this morning.  No sun threatens the clouds. No wind challenges the calm. It is so different from yesterday’s whale watching tour. Aki would have loved the attention she would have received from the other passengers when they were not photographing orcas. When they were distracted by whales, the little dog would have hunted around lower deck for dropped food. But I think Aki enjoys these mild days with me, alone on a trail, more than a party.

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It takes little to shatter a calm, even one as profound as this one. Like a drop of accumulated rain falling from tree branch onto the beaver pond, a small thing can send out disruptive ripples.

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As we pass the pond on the way to the beach, a tour guide walks up. He speaks in the quiet tone of a person who prefers silence. I am waiting for my crew to arrive. Thinking a crew of soft-spoken people would almost go unnoticed, I wish him well.  The little poodle-mix and I walk on, reaching the beach as the tide starts to cover the Shaman Island causeway. The usual eagle guards the causeway from his usual rock. Two gulls bicker than settle into silence. Even the waves seem careful to hit the beach with a whisper. Then a child cries out like a tattletale gull as the guide leads a group of cruise ship tourists onto the beach.

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Dying Fog

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This morning fog hides the sun and blocks the view sheds of the Fish Creek Delta. Cruise ship fog horns mix with the panic honks of unseen Canada geese. Aki is nervous. The high-pitched screams of eagles hidden in nearby spruce trees put her on guard.

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The sun breaks through the marine layer and starts to deconstruct fog covering Fritz Cove and the surrounding mountains. That touching forested hills seems to tear itself apart on the old growth trees. Ocean fog moves up and down the bay like a hunting animal.

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While focusing my camera on a patch of fog flowing up and over a clutch of spruce, I spot two male deer on the foreground. One stands guard while the other one lies on meadow grass. The trailside grass prevents Aki from seeing the two deer. She will never know they were so close. Both deer are grazing in the meadow when we leave their view shed.

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Quiet Time

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Grey clouds dominate North Douglas Island this morning but some shafts of light manage to reach the glacier. This promises a sunny day ahead. But I don’t mind the low contrast lighting, which increases the chances for solitude. For the nose-dominated Aki there is little difference between blue or gray skies. She rarely looks above the horizon.

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Two ravens spar like fighter pilots above the beach. One drops onto a rock near Shaman Island. When it curls its wings back for landing, the finger-like wingtip feathers curl back like an eagles. For a moment I believe that the raven has transformed into one of the big predators. Then it croaks, spoiling the illusion.

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Down the beach, a mature bald eagle eyes us from its spruce tree perch. I walk out onto the beach for a better view of it while Aki waits on the trail. The sound of a surfacing humpback whale surprises me. When I turn to look, it is throwing up its flukes for a shallow dive.

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While Aki and I wait for the whale to surface again, a walker approaches on the trail. He waits with us for the whale. He is old, but not stooped. With one hand he touches his beard. The other seems to grip an invisible cigarette. We talk of fishing the river that Aki and I visited yesterday. He points out the eagles strutting along nearby Peterson Creek. We agree that they are there for the returning salmon. The whale surfaces again but only long enough to toss its tail up for another dive.

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Ropes

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Aki sniffs at something washed up on Sandy Beach by last night’s tide. Every high tide leaves a rope of rockweed along the length of the beach. I’m walking down this line of seaweed, taking an inventory of gull and eagle feathers, bits of crab shell, and sometimes whole salmon bodies. Thankfully no plastic objects or bags peak out from under clumps of the rockweed.

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The last storm tide that ripped down Gastineau Channel sucked away from the beach several inches of the finely pounded gold ore that we call “sand.” This exposed rusted machinery and fragments of ceramic bowls too thick to be fashionable today. What was once garbage we now considered relics of a time before the collapse of the Treadwell mine tunnels in 1917.

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We pass the partially restored tower that once ventilated the mine tunnels that ran beneath the channel. The usual pair of bald eagles roost on the tower’s metal roof, apparently obvious to the approach of the inbound Norwegian Jewell.  The mega cruise ship spews up two thick ropes of pollution from its stacks as it motors towards Juneau.

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