Category Archives: Bald Eagle

Photobombed by a Godwit

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When I look up, it’s all grey and cloud. But here on the ground sunlight makes the most out of the new growth colors. Aki and I squint against it. We hear an eagle claim ownership of a beachside spruce before we spot it. Aki hangs back near some rocks as I walk past the eagle and toward the partially exposed causeway to Shaman Island. Black crows and white/gray gulls patrol the tidelands and I wonder why they evolved into such easy-to-spot colors. A godwit, a rare visitor with a chestnut cloak almost disappears against dun colored rocks. Same with the blue-grey heron. When I get home from the walk I discover that the two camo birds pose together in one of my photographs. I was trying to capture the great blue heron when photobombed by the godwit.

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New Growth

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Yesterday’s warmth triggered a release of sap that now coats the balsam poplars’ new growth. It also must have released incense trapped in the sap because the air along the Perseverance Trail smells like church. When the sun finally pushes through the morning cloud layer, the yellow-green poplar leaves seem to absorb it until they glow. These leaves will spend the summer coated in an drab green and then, while dying, give the Gold Creek valley it’s only fall glory by turning rich yellow.

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Above the new growth I look for mountain goats but only find two. One disappears. The other, its fur poofing out like a well trimmed French poodle, lingers. Just down the trail, I watched a bald eagle cruise low over the flank of Mt. Juneau where I spotted two goats last week. It could have been hunting for kids or afterbirth. The goats aren’t due to birth their young until late May but I wonder if, like everything else this year, they are ahead of schedule.

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Frustrated

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I forgot how this trail to the mouth of Mendenhall River affects Aki. It seems to rob her of confidence, even on a sunny spring day when no shotgun blasts compete with the complaints of eagles, ravens, and ducks. She stations herself at my heels and gives me her, “It is time to turn back” stare every time I look in her direction.

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I start to lose confidence in my ability to photograph wild things when my camera refuses to focus on bald eagles as they dive on fish in the river. I do fine when the big, white-headed birds pose between fishing expeditions. But all but one of the bird-in-action pics look shaky. In the discarded ones I can still make out the way the eagle’s wings twist and bend as it positions itself over it prey.

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Across the river, another human is flushing ducks and ravens toward us. He watches some drama at the tip of a disappearing spit. I see a great splash off the spit, but not what caused it. Now as frustrated as the little dog, I head back into the forest, clicking one last picture of the glacier reflected in the river for which it is named.

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Hungry Raptors

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For the second time a northern harrier flew close over my head after crossing the Eagle River. The first time, when the river was full of spawned out silver salmon, the sleekly built owl flew toward me, allowing plenty of opportunity to watch its approach. Today, I caught it out of the corner of my eye and just managed to take one photograph as it climbed to hunting height. Both times I was amazed at the far-forward position of the bird’s wing.

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Minutes after the harrier drifted behind a big cottonwood tree, a tight formation of Canada geese flew over my little dog and I. In an explosion of noise the geese broke formation. Seconds later a bald eagle climbed back up to its hunting height.

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I’ve seen peregrine falcons knock pigeons out of the sky over Downtown Juneau but never even heard of an eagle hunting like that. In spite of their size, the raptors seem most comfortable using their fierce beak and talons to tear meat from carcasses. They aren’t brave. I once saw a tiny arctic tern chase an eagle away from the tern’s nesting colony by pulling at its tail feathers. But, it is famine time for the big birds, when they have to get creative to eat. As I write this, an eagle flies circles over Chicken Ridge and I wonder if tonight, some neighbor will be missing their cat.

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Shaman Island

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Aki and return to the North Douglas trail head and, thankfully, find it empty of cars. Ten minutes into the beachside forest, I realize that my boots are the nosiest things in the woods. No airplane, boat, or car noise reaches us. We can hear a cranky set of Stellar jays and the long trill of a thrush. A goose calls out in panic and flies over our heads. The solitude is not appreciated by my little dog, who loves company of all kinds. She must settle for the smells of scent left by dogs who passed through here yesterday.

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With the uneasiness I always feel when walking over exposed tidelands, I lead Aki onto a flat, sandy plain dotted with shallow tide pools. She hangs back, like she knows in a few hours almost twenty feet of water will cover the ground where we walk. In minutes we are on the now-exposed causeway that offers a dry path to Shaman Island. A large murder of crows stirs on a rocky point at the end of the causeway and breaks into the trees in the interior of the island. Two bald eagles roost in trees on the edge of the island. Another eagle, bound from Admiralty Island, joins them.

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A small raft of harlequin ducks swims away as if to distract us from a small family of their kind that remain huddled against the point. Near the family an orange beaked oystercatcher whistles as if to attract our attention away from its nest. Aki and I wander around the tiny island and start back across the causeway. The crows abandon their island hideout and land in front of us on the trail. When we get within forty feet of them, they burst in the air in a big noisy show and circle back to join the harlequin family and the oystercatcher on the rocky point. A flock of gulls drops in to join them. All will be happy when the tide buries the causeway.

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Dances

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This morning a family of mountain goats feed near the shoulder of Mt. Juneau. Aki tugs at her leash as I try to watch then through my telephoto lens. From other trips, I know that the goats start each day down the mountain in areas where fresh greens already think it is spring. The noise of people and dogs on the trail seem to drive them to the higher elevations. So I shouldn’t be surprised to find a clump of snow-white fur on the trail near a large patch of emerging ferns. It could be from a dog except it isn’t greasy like a northern bred’s at the end of winter. It doesn’t have that stale, doggy smell. It smells heather-like, maybe like a just-broken willow twig.

1On our return trip down Basin Road we pass under two eagles in loose formation. I wonder if they are the pair that I watched mate yesterday from our upstairs’ window. Unlike the loose, play-like flight of today, they flew like predator and prey. One pursued the other who repeatedly escaped pursuit with abrupt turns. Finally they hooked up—literally. With talons locked, they formed a spinning sphere that that tumbled toward the state capitol building. In seconds they broke apart and climbed back into the sky. Seconds later they resumed the hunt.

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