Category Archives: Harlequin Ducks

Just Before the Temp Drops

This was a day for walking in shadows while having views of sun-flooded mountains. For some reason it is more pleasant than the bright days we enjoyed the last few days. It might be the last day for not wearing my heavy winter gear. Tomorrow it will drop to less than seven degrees Fahrenheit, by the time I post this piece.

We will have to dress Aki in her warmest clothes for tomorrow’s hike. She won’t mind. I won’t either. We will both enjoy the slight sting on our noises delivered by the cold. Today, I can leave my parka unzipped as we head down the trail. Even though it is a good weather weekend Sunday, we have the trail almost to ourselves. Most folks are getting ready for the Superbowl.

We hike down to the beach as the temperature begins to fall. Mallards, gulls, and harlequin ducks are gathered together on the shore. While the gulls stay put, the ducks drop into the ocean and swim just offshore, keeping pace as Aki and I move over the snow covered ground. In a few minutes they do reverse turns and head back to their beach hangouts. I guess the birds now consider us trustworthy neighbors.

Five Inch Storm

Leave a reply

Last night one of those five-inch-rains deals started. This morning it is still a storm, not a rain shower. Strong wind shivers the car as we drive out to North Douglas. It turned out to be a bad choice.

A few thousand feet into the forest, we hit the first problem—ten feet of flooded trail. Aki started to cross it first, slowly planting each step. He seems to think that if he slipped he’d be carried downstream by the little flood. This slowed me down, allowing more water to slip into my boots.

We had to pass through many similar puddles, each one soaking Aki’s fur and my boots. The rain soaked my parka and Aki’s head and back. It drove away most of the ducks and gulls. But we did spot the little trio of harlequin ducks nestled near a pile of rocks on the beach.

Acceptance?

Leave a reply

The slick-ice trail makes our walk to the beach challenging. It’d be dangerous if I weren’t wearing ice grippers and Aki is a skillful ice dog. We pass the beaver pond. Thanks to the recently snow melt, we can see the just frozen holes that beavers use to leave the pond water. They do that every evening so they can patch holes their pond dam.

We see little on the way to the beach except for the portrait of a dragon’s head formed by receding ice. The beach seems empty of life when we reach it. Then a gang of gulls lands on the gravel about twenty feet away. They take up posts on the tops of exposed rocks and give us the hard stare. I still feel honored, maybe even accepted by the normally careful gulls.

Further down the beach we stumble on three harlequin docks. One, a female, is perched on the water’s edge of a rock watching a gull watching Aki and I. The other two harlequins stand nearby on the beach, also watching the rocky gull. This distraction allows us to get pretty near the ducks until they spot us and take to the water.

Messy Eaters

Leave a reply

This morning, the weather offered little promise for good photographs or even a decent walk. Wind whipped raindrops around the yard as the little dog and I headed to the car. We drove out to the old Tlingit village site where an old growth forest offered some protection from the storm.

It was almost cozy in the woods but inclement on the spit we had to pass over to reach Point Louisa. Three guys in heavy weather gear fished for silver salmon on the spit. Just off shore several harbor seals had more success harvesting salmon.

At the end of the spit we ducked into a sparce forest before reaching the point. On the other side of the woods we watched a trio of harlequin ducks sped across the water, heading toward Favorite Passage. A minute later they reversed course and returned to Auk Bay.

A loud croak made me look away from the ducks to where two Stellar sea lions seemed to be cuddling in the small waves. Another sea lion shot its head out of the water with a salmon in its jaws. It flung its head back and forth, trying to break the fish’s spine. Several gulls soon arrived to pick up the scraps flying from the sea lion’s mouth. They know that sea mammals are messy eaters.

Aural Dramas

Leave a reply

It is quiet in the forest. We can’t even hear the sound of wind whipping up waives on nearby Lynn Canal. That’s why the smack of a bark fragment hitting the beaver pond ice grabs my attention. After a second fragment joins the first one, I notice a faint tapping sound. It’s too weak to be made by the aggressive red breasted sapsucker. Looking up I spot the percussionist—a downy woodpecker. He is still tapping his way up the spruce tree as Aki and I round the pond and head toward the beach.

We hear a sharp crack—just one—as we leave the pond. I want to wait to see if the deer will reveal itself. Aki will have none of it. She has scents to check and pee messages to leave. We cross a small muskeg meadow before reaching the beach. It is dotted with tall pine snags with twisted branches that reach toward heaven like desperate saints. Fast moving crossbills appear and disappear on the higher branches. We are closer to the beach now so the sounds of surf mingle with the crossbill’s kip-kip calls.

After a short swing along the beach, the trail crosses a headland recently hammered by a fierce wind. It downed or tipped over more than a half-dozen trees. Most were middle-aged hemlocks. One was a giant spruce. It didn’t snap off at the base or collapse onto the forest floor. It still reclines against another spruce with most of its roots exposed to the air.

Wind and surf have forced off most of the ducks and all the gulls and scoters. Only the tiny harlequin and bufflehead remain in the cove, bobbing up and down on incoming waves. A murder of nervous crows overflies the ducks, lands for a few sections on a rocky ledge, and then returns to the air.

A Half Hour of Wilderness

Leave a reply

Two adult bald eagles watch Aki and I walk out of old growth woods and onto a snow-covered beach. Before we appeared they were probably watching ducks. There must be over a thousand of them just offshore: scoters, golden eyes, mallards, and my favorites—the harlequins. The golden eyes seem the most jumpy. In twos and threes they fly away, their wings imitating the maniacal call of Curley, one of the Three Stooges. The scoters are the most organized. Their large raft forms and reforms shapes like a American high school band at a football game. A half-dozen mallards watch all this from the beach. A few feet away, harlequins paddle with their heads plunged into the water.

I’m thankful for the chance to watch the ducks being ducks, not waterfowl made tense by eagle dives or aggressive dogs. But it is puzzling that the eagles haven’t tried pluck one of the unsuspecting harlequins from the water.

Aki’s having fun porpoising through the beach snow. She even ignores the siskins and thrush bouncing from limb to limb in the beachside alders. The little dog doesn’t object when we drop down onto bare section of the beach. The last flood tide has carried away the snow, leaving behind piles of severed seaweed.

Just after we find a set of fresh deer tracks, the first of 11 large dogs charges up to me. They are loose, but relatively well behaved. The dogs’ human handler carries a half-gallon sized bag for collecting their poop so he is not a yob. But any chance of spotting the deer is now gone. In seconds the dogs will be charging down the beach, stirring ducks, and maybe eagles to flight. We move on, saddened that the trail ahead, the one just transited by the dog pack, will have been swept clean of wild things.

Wet Eagles and Slumping Ducks

Leave a reply

I’ve never before seen the Auk Bay birds relax. The many dogs walking their humans on along the beach or using a parallel trail through the bordering old growth woods keep them on guard. Even when we are the first visitors of the day, the harlequin ducks will panic off the beach when they hear my footfalls. Those same harlequins stun me today by ignoring our appearance.

Seven of the party-colored ducks form a line on the beach, facing a noisy raft of goldeneye ducks that chatter and paddle just off shore. The harlequins slump with indifference. It takes the overflight of a bald eagle to flush the harlequins into the water. When a screen of alders blocks my duck views, I follow Aki told the old Auk village site.

In a few minutes we emerge from the trees and find a soaking-wet bald eagle squatting on the snow-covered beach. Later I will search where it landed for spot of blood or scrapes of meat and only find talon tracks and marks made by wing feathers dragged across the snow. I’ve seen sled dogs roll themselves dry in the snow after breaking through thin ice. Was that why the eagle landed on such an exposed section of beach? Did it dive unsuccessfully on one of the harlequins, dunking it self in the process?

While Aki sniffs something on the trail, the eagle spots me and labors into the air. Like a heavily loaded airplane, it climbs into the air and then drops back onto the snow. On the following bounce it climbs upward as a shower of snow flies off its talons. By powering it meter long wings up and down, it finally breaks free.

Reunion Walk

Leave a reply

It took me a few minutes to find Aki so I could invite her on a walk. It was hard. She had hunkered herself far under a bed. The snow stopped an hour ago as did the wind. It was a degree above freezing. I wanted to tell the little dog that she’d enjoy the planned visit to Outer Point Trail.

It was to be our first walk since my return from the north. It blew 90 knots the last time we walked together. Aki must have expected more of the same today. She shivered while we drove out to trailhead even as hot air from the car heater blew on her. Her mood changed when I parked. She squeaked and leaped onto the snow-covered ground. High winds and cold forgotten, she trotted ahead of me down the trail, tail a metronome.

As we moved through the old growth I thought of the almost judgmental light of North Alaska that I had to squint into two days ago. It brought out beauty and clarity but little comfort. Today’s gray’s light is as comforting as a hug.

As a light snow began to fall, we reached the beach. Rafts of ducks, harlequins and golden eyes, dived on feed. Ten meters away from the ducks, a seal surfaced and gave me the saddest stare—as sad as a boy last picked to play ball, a girl betrayed by her best friend.

Foolish Pioneer

Leave a reply

It stops me dead in my tracks. Aki trots off to catch up with her doggie guest. As she disappears around the corner, I stare at the source of my distraction—a leafed-out blueberry bush. It’s almost January, you little fool. The lush, green plant doesn’t look out of place. At the bush’s base sorrel plants are yet to turn red. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s 40 degrees. Winter seems like a legend for old men to share with their grandkids.

In a week the little dog and I might be struggling down this same North Douglas trail through deep snow. Then the precocious blueberry plant will suffer like a Dickensian orphan. Now, its roots are drinking in the rain.

Why

1 Reply

Aki and I have just left the forest for a graveled beach. It was easy walking in the woods. Last night’s snow never penetrated the forest’s canopy. There is little snow on the beach. Most of it has been wiped away by the last high tide. Above a thick line of seaweed that marks the tide line, snow still occupies the hollows between gravel, dead beach grass and abandoned mussel shells.

The water offshore is clam, as if weighed down by low clouds that seem to touch the water’s surface. A few meters away from us a dozen gulls work to ignore the little dog and I. Twenty meters out, an equal number of harlequin ducks hunt for fish. After diving, one of the ducks calls out with a cry that could have been made by excited toddler on the playground.

Aki gives me a hard look, like she might to discourage me from musing about birds and the sounds they make. She doesn’t want to hear me ponder out loud why crows croak, eagles scream, gulls keen, and harlequins cry out with childish joy.