Category Archives: Bald Eagle

Winter Feed

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Aki is already wet from the snow. It falls in fat flakes that soften the edges of the glacial moraine. But the storm that delivers the snow has grounded planes and apparently discouraged the guys at the firing range. It brings silence that lasts until we are within 30 yards of the Mendenhall River when a raven croaks twice. At this point I am tired from a mile of slogging along the soft trail and ducking under trailside alders bent over with snow and ice. So, I am unprepared for the cloud of ravcns, bald eagles, and magpies that form on my right as I tried to photograph the river.

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Around the corner I spot blood on the snow and a deer skeleton. Its rumpled skin is nearby. The eagles escape across the river but the cabal of ravens hold station in some nearby trees. Only two magpies return to the carrion, picking the deer bones while the presence of Aki and I keep the bigger birds away. In this time of famine along the river, I can’t justify remaining near the bones. When we pass the raven sentry on our way home, it croaks the all clear.

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Waiting For the Storm

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Aki and I are trying to get in a rain forest walk before the promised Christmas blizzard. A gentle breeze caries the scent of snow but otherwise it is just another flat-gray December day. I stop to photograph muskeg water over white ice on the beaver pond. Light filling the space between standing spruce animates the tea-colored water and brightens moss clumping on the limbs of a half-submerged deadfall.

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When we reach the beach, the little dog and I find the birds jumpy. Harlequin ducks are quick to flight. The ever-present raft of surf scoters paddles close to the beach rocks. I suspect the eagle that flies towards us from Shaman Island. But the big bird veers off course when it spots us. Even in its absence the birds remain alert. I watch the scoters as the wind rises, looking hunting sea lions. None appear. Beyond, a band of darkness slides over the Chilkat Mountains and moves down channel toward Juneau. I know it is already snowing heavy in Hoonah. Soon we will have the permission to be lazy always granted by a storm.

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Solstice Without Snow

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Aki and I walk along the Mendenhall River where it slips into Fritz Cove. None of the local birds or animals show signs that they celebrate the Solstice. A harbor seal sulks in the river and we can hear but not see a trio of bald eagles. They complain from perches deep in the woods, sounding like hung over parents telling their kids to shut up. On the sand bar that forms the south border of the river mallard ducks waddle, stopping occasionally to belt out one of their maniac laughs. The gulls, being gulls, scream at each other. Solstice began early this morning. Maybe the birds and seals are partied out.

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Aki looks edgy, keeping above the high-tide line. Confident that tomorrow the earth will turn its face back to the north, I enjoy the gray. I wish we still had snow but settle for the ice stalactites that decorate a sheltered cove. Soon even they will be gone unless winter returns.

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Winter Comes This Way

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The snow is a pleasant surprise. We expected wind driven rain on the moraine. But fat flakes meander down onto the wet trail. Three inches of new snow will cover the ground by the time we finish the walk. Is winter finally strong enough to push away the wet fall weather? The temperature drops enough to allow a snow slurry to form over the moraine ponds as flakes collect in Aki’s gray fur. Minutes later, the ground snow is cold enough to squeak.

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Three bald eagles, apparently unaffected by the weather change, strike patriotic poses on the bare branches of cottonwood trees. One throws us a nasty look and flies off.

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Back from The East Coast

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Yesterday, while Aki walked a Juneau Trail with a dog buddy, I strolled through the National Gallery in Washington D.C. Treating the main hallways as rain forest trails, I turned off them often to explore one of the rat-warren gallery’s rooms, like the one with the Turners or the hard to spot one with the Vermeer painting of the fop with a fuzzy red beret. The paintings’ drama and rich colors reminded me of Outer Point on the high contrast days of spring or a dying winter afternoon along Eagle River.

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Remembering it from an earlier visit, I made an expedition into the basement where they keep the Degas ballerina sculptures and some plasters by Rodin. Even these reminded me of the rain forest with its complex shapes and falling leaves yielding to a strong wind.

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This afternoon, an hour after our return flight to Juneau landed, the little dog and I are alone on the Lower Fish Creek Trail. Instead of watchful guards we have an eagle that keeps us honest with its screams. I remember a walk I took a few days before when Aki’s other human and I crossed New York’s Central Park to reach the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Like it does over our glacial moraine, the sun broke through clouds to enrich the yellows and oranges leaves of trees along the trail. We passed a women turned away from the beauty to concentrate on her cell phone conversation while two men waited patiently for their leashed dog to evacuate its bowels.

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Frost

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On these early winter mornings, the sun paints the rainforest its narrowest brush. Aki and I will spend most of this walk through it on ground where last night’s frost waits to melt when exposed to sunlight. On the border of meadow and forest, the frost may thicken for weeks on Labrador tea and lingonberry plants without challenge from the sun.

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It’s low tide when we reach the beach where cold had edged tide pools with rime ice. Frost outlines the iodine-brown fronds of seaweed. I follow Aki to a sunny stretch of the beach and expect some warmth from the sun but it only makes me squint.

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Back on the meadow behind the beach, I try Aki’s patience by waiting for sunlight to reach a patch of lingonberry brush. Somehow, three of the dark-red berries have survived the pickers and birds. The one I pluck tastes almost sweet and as complicated as a good red wine. Then, the sun glistens the scene.

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Somebody’s Birthday

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Today is Aki’s tenth birthday. We celebrate on the glacial moraine. A favorite trail is almost empty even though it’s sunny and frost feathers cover every stone, fallen leaf, and blade of grass.

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Wafer-thin ice covers Mendenhall Lake except where Steep Creek flows into it. At least four late-run sockeye salmon recently entered the stream. Three have taken up station on one end of the first beaver pond. A fourth is dead at the feet a bald eagle that is busy ripping off strips of salmon flesh with its orange beak. In seconds three other eagles land. The first bird chases off one but the other hangs about. Two magpies flutter around the feast but have to settle for scraps that have landed a safe distance from the eagles. Soon raven will push away the magpies and reach a détente with the bigger birds.

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Aki, she ignores the bickering birds but not the scent of something she catches after we have moved away from the lake. At first oblivious, I trod on until I sense her absence. Turning, I see her standing stiff, noise wrinkling in caution. A line of what looks like wolf tracks lead from her to me. I back track and take an alternative way to the car with my little protector.

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Comfort Zones

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As we round False Outer Point I spot an immature bald eagle perched on a nearby rock. Expecting it to fly off, I take a few pictures of the bird even though it is backlit. The big bird slowly turns it head right, then left but doesn’t move. The topography forces us to come within fifty feet of the eagle, well within our eagles’ usual privacy zone. Bur this one is still on its rock when we pass through the choke point and reach the next headland. “What’s the deal with this eagle, little dog?” She ignores me like she did the eagle.

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We keep moving to make it around a series of headlands before the tide floods the trail home. Around the last one, another eagle squats on an offshore rock. This one flies off before I can find the right setting on the camera. But ten feet away, a tiny sparrow preens on a surf-rounded rock.

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Glacier Eagles

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For the first time in a week, Aki sees her shadow. But, she doesn’t look at her dark self. She concentrates on an orange colored disk that flies along the shore of Mendenhall Lake. After running her Frisbee to ground, the little dog trots up to me. Distracted by a nearby eagle, I give Aki a nonchalant pat. The eagle, an immature bald, perches on a small rock and faces the glacier. I wonder if the big bird is stunned by the glowing river of ice or merely enjoy the warmth of afternoon sun on its chestnut colored back.

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The eagle turns its head to watch us. We place Aki on a lead so she won’t disturb the bird and circle around it. But we can’t avoid entering its privacy zone and it breaks into flight.

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After visiting a monster-sized beaver dam, we circle back to car but have to pause to let two mature bald eagles bathe in peace in a shallow stream. When other dog walkers approach these birds from the opposite direction they fly up into a nearby cottonwood tree and give us the stink eye when we pass underneath their roost.

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Fish Creek

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Aki and I slog up the Fish Creek Trail, entering a land gone to rest after the salmon runs. In late summer, pink and chum salmon fought for space and mates on the creek’s shallow stretches. They mated and died, providing food for bears, eagles and herons. Thick brush lined the trail, hiding the presence of bears until a black mass darts away when you round a corner or you narrowly miss stepping in a half eaten salmon.

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In summer this creek valley is an exciting, dangerous place, especially for a ten-pound poodle mix with a Napoleon complex. But today, with old growth canopy providing some protection from the rain, and the creek waters humming their calming song, I can relax and pretend that the creek is carrying away my blues.

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Aki is not relaxed. She stations herself a few feet in front of me as we wind around hundred foot high spruce trees, checking back often to make sure I am not about to do something stupid. Thinking that she smells danger, I look for the tracks of bears or wolves but only find one made this morning by a deer pivoting off the trail.

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I wonder what it would be like to spend your whole life in this little creek valley, smoking and drying salmon and deer meat to carry you through to next summer. After years of watching the creek bring salmon to your camp would you claim it as your god?