Neither Aki nor I speak the language but I still enjoy the locals’ conversations. Along he forested part of the trail we thrushes, robins, wrens share their work songs. Eagles bitch at each other. Gulls bicker. Ducks warn others raft members of our approach to the beach.

In spite of all the forest noise, the beach is empty. A strip of fog forms a funny hat on Benjamin Island. Most of the action is at Shaman Island where the gulls and eagles linger. Close in a small collection of harlequin ducks make quick dives on baitfish.

Back in the forest, it’s more bird song and the occasional squirrel chatter. Near the car two red-breasted sapsuckers hammer the parallel parking sign. One flushes away. The other climbs to the top of a sign and gives up a hard look.

All the birds on the Fish Creek delta are edgy and its not Aki’s fault. It can’t be the weather. We have clear, windless skies. A gentle sun warms the beach grass straw. It can’t be the tide, which retreated this morning to leave acres of exposed mud for the birds to hunt and hide on. Mallards burst off the flats in twos and threes to fly in an arc around us and land on the creek water.

Eagles launch from beachside spruce to shrink into dots over the wetlands. Eventually, I make the connection. It’s their gliding flight that routs the mallards and other ducks.

In the woods along Fish Creek pond, a murder of crows wake from their roost. Their outriders dog our passage back to the trailhead, croaking warning to the little dog. But the resident squirrels, normally the first to scold Aki, watch us pass without comment.

I should know what to call that mountain, little dog. When I check a map later, I’ll learn that its name is Thunder. But this morning, it is just another tooth in the saw blade of mountains that dam the Juneau Icefield. Aki doesn’t care about mountains or their names. She worries about eagles. We keep to the beach’s brush line even though it’s as quiet as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

Last night the trail’s tidal door closed. Now it opens on the ebb. But seawater still covers most of the beach and the sand bars that form the mouth of the Mendenhall River. I lead Aki around several headlands, each time expecting to see eagles, otters, ravens, or song birds. When none appear, Aki trots across a widening sand bar to a driftwood root wad where eagles like to roost at low tide. After nosing small surf striking near the wad, she turns back to the brush line. An eagle launches from a spruce deep in the forest and flies over us. Minutes later two other eagles play chase over the river. The one behind extends its talons like they do when diving on prey or seeking to mate. A gull dives on them, breaking up their fun.

The common merganser is not so common in the rain forest that Aki and I patrol. We see many of the red headed variety. Today, one our way to ski, we spot a raft of both types of the merganser cousins on a stretch of open water of the otherwise still frozen Peterson Creek. We also watched a larger raft of mergansers react nervously to a hunting eagle over Amalga Harbor. Both are signs that the spring bird migration has begun.

The ski trails along Eagle River are deteriorating but by making the occasional work around we managed to reach the river. Encouraged by the two merganser sightings, I hope to spot more migrating birds here. In past springs, we watched tundra swans, geese, and a myriad of ducks rest on the river before resuming their northward flight. But not today.