Category Archives: Dan Branch

Why Does the Robin Sing?

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For the third day in a row, I’ve been scolded by a belted kingfisher. It happened today when Aki and walked to the edge of the collapsed glory hole near Treadwell. There, gnarled pilings, the ruins of the old loading quays, poke up through sand manufactured almost 100 years ago by stamp mills. The sound of the mill’s great weights pulverizing gold ore would have blocked out off other sound on this beach. If they operated today, I wouldn’t have been able to hear the kingfisher’s angry lecture. He yelled at the little dog and I from an overhanging branch. After freezing up in place it dived into the glory hole to seize a sliver-bright herring in its spear-shaped beak.

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While the kingfisher ate, Aki and returned to the woods mixed-hardwood forest were the sweeter songs of robin, wren, and thrush blocked out the sound of boat wakes hitting Sandy Beach. Wandering through such a saccharine cloud, I felt like a minor character in a Disney cartoon, where birds keep up their spirits by whistling while they work. I understand the purpose of the territorial kingfisher’s ugly squawk but why does the robin sing such an appealing tune?

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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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Thankful for Some Color

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An up channel wind sweeps the Sheep Creek Delta. Normally this wind brings clear weather but today it only chills. In a slow motion race with the incoming tide, the little dog and I walk toward the navigation aid that shelters, as usual, a bald eagle. A small murder of crows tries to ignore our approach. They seem dispirited by the wind and grey weather. Probably they are just conserving their strength for a search of the delta when the tide recedes.

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Out of synch with the chilly air and opaque sky, candles of yellow-green leafed-out poplars brighten the spruce forest covering the flanks of Sheep Mountain. While Aki tears across a sandy stretch of beach, I try to count the mountainside candles, thankful for their color.

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Just for the Laughs

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Crows. Today is all about this murder of crows that follow us down the beach. They exploded in the air when we moved out the forest and then settled just fifty feet down the trail we have to follow. The corvid leapfrog game continued until the trail took us back into the woods. If they weren’t crows, I would wonder if they were leading us away from their nests. But, crows are fully capable of doing complex things just for the laughs.

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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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Hard Eyes

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There are some things a gray-haired person should not do on a spring morning. Reading Housman’s “Loveliest of Trees,” with its reminder that lost years will not come again, is one of them. While I read the poem gentle rain washed a winter’s accumulation of dust from Chicken Ridge and irrigated the budding lilacs.

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Out of on the moraine with the little dog, I did another unwise thing—locked eyes with a Steller jay. Rather than fly to high branch to scold us, the jay settled on a low spruce branch and turned sideways so its eye could bore in on my face. The hard, black marble of the eye reflected no kindness, just scrutiny. Feeling measured and found lacking, I let Aki lead me to the little cashew shaped lake where the glacier seems to rise about a strip of forest. Two mallards and a bufflehead family move slowly down lake from us. But one of the bufflehead young, still in tan and chestnut swung past us. Aki didn’t abuse this trust by charging into the lake. I locked eyes with the young duck and saw defiance, not fear, realized what a poor judge I am of the facial expressions of birds.

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Even the Devil’s Club Thinks It’s Spring

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A rock fall draws our attention. The little dog sniffs and stares. I follow her gaze and spot two mountain goats just above us on the flank of Mt. Juneau. I’d seen at least six other goats on this hike along Gold Creek. All were too far above us to be more than moving white dots. These two are close enough to watch, to appreciate a little of their personalities. The one following moved slowly, carefully lifting it’s front legs over deadfalls and rocks. It was hard to imagine this goat gracefully transiting a rock face like I’d seen them do often.

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Along the creek, it looks like early summer. Tiny yellow violets are flowering. Elderberry plants, willows, and balsam poplars show fresh green growth. The later smell like the balsam incense for which they are named. Even the conservative devil club plants are leafing out. Yet the goats climb away from all this lush new growth.

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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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Soft and Grey

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I should have known better than choose a North Douglas trail for today’s walk. On this Sunday afternoon with a lot of visitors in town for the folk festival, the attraction of a minus 3.5 foot tide has filled the trailhead parking areas to overflowing. Even the waters Fritz Cove are crowded with boats targeting feeder king salmon. Trying to ignore my whinny little dog, I head to a trail unaffected by tides.

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I expected to find the parking lot for this mountain meadow trail empty but every space but one is taken. Men with hunting dogs and shotguns wander toward the trees where grouse have been know to roost. It’s too late for the snow and too early for muskeg wildflowers but Aki has the dogs to distract her. I am drawn to small islands of beauty things like skunk cabbage and the bleached grain of standing-dead pines. The yellow skunk cabbage flowers provide the only vibrant color on the meadow until I spot the splash of red from the exposed breast of an American robin. Otherwise it is a soft, gray day that offers silence until the first hunter fires.

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