Category Archives: Poodle

They Need Space to Do Their Job

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What a difference ten miles makes. Yesterday, Aki and I walked on a meadow burdened down with snow. This morning, we cruise over an almost snowless riverine meadow. We aren’t the only pair cruising here. Two short-eared owls glide over the grasslands. When they spot a vole or mouse, the bank into a sharp turn, dive down and snatch their prey. In seconds they are on their way to a snag or driftwood log to eat.

            One of the owls lands on the top of a stump very near the trail. It’s half-a-kilometer from us but only meters from half-a-dozen dogs and their humans. I take what I know will be a fuzzy photograph, then watch the owl resume the hunt. We continue down the trail. When we meet, I ask one of the lucky dog walkers if he knew what kind of owl he just saw. The man looks far out over the meadow where the owl was gliding, and said, “There’s an owl.” Then he told me that neither he nor his friends saw he owl while it had supped on top of a stump so near to them.  

            On the way back to the car we spot one of the owls flying across the river and away. The other one is trying to finish a meal while on top of a driftwood root wad. But it has to keep its eyes on a photographer, who points a long-barreled lens at the owl as he closes on it. The owl then swivels its head in the opposite direction to watch another photographer approach.

Later, I will be disappointed in the photos I took of the second owl. Many will look slightly out-of-focus, which is almost avoidable given the distance between me and the owl at the time I took them. In all the others, the owl only presents its profile as it keeps both eyes on the advancing photographers. We need to give wild things the space they need to do their jobs. 

Wind Erasure

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Ruah, it means wind or the breath of God in Hebrew. Aki isn’t thinking about Ruah. She is burying her head in snow. We just left a packed trail across Gastineau Meadow. I ventured away from it to get an unfiltered view of Mt. Juneau. For me this required punching through ten centimeters of wind-drift snow. The little dog just cruised across the top of it. The fine snow delivered by the wind didn’t inconvenience her. 

            Yesterday strong winds blew snow off the surrounding mountain tops and dropped it on the meadow. It erased all but the deepest tracks. This morning we could tell ourselves that we are alone in a wilderness. A tiny meadow vole soon puts paid to my delusion of grandeur. Perhaps startled by my boot crunches, the vole bounded across open meadow to the protection of a bull pine snag. Its tracks provided proof that Aki and I are not alone. In a few minutes we will cross fresh tracks left by a loping snowshoe hare. 

            The wind rises as we turn back to firmer trail. Long tendrils of wind-driven snow extend from the saddles and ridges of Mt. Jumbo and the other peaks lining Gastineau Channel. Time to get back to the house. Wind will rock the car was we drive across the Douglas Bridge. 

This afternoon, while the little dog lays curled up on our floor, warmed by sun coming through the window, wind-driven snow will tidy up the mess we left on the meadow.

Raven Convention

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The tide is out at Sandy Beach. A pair of adult bald eagles are hunched in the branches of a tall cottonwood tree. The stiff breeze powers through their neck feathers, giving each a bald spot. If the eagles turn around, they could watch convention of ravens convening near the waterline. 

            Several inches of new snow brighten the beach above the high tide line. The snow is dimpled by the prints of dogs and their humans. A raven flies toward Aki as she investigates a promising set of prints. It flies low over her head. The startled dog leaps in surprise as the raven circles her and lands two meters away. Is this the same raven that tries to play tag with the poodle-mix at Sheep Creek? If not, work must have gotten out in Raven’s ville that Aki is quick to take the bait. 

            When Aki ignores the raven, it circles me a few times, lands on the sand, and struts away like the rich man on a Monopoly board. Three different ravens squawk as they fly over the channel. They fly across the Slide Creek avalanche chute, now burdened by the runout of a fresh avalanche.   

Little Eddystone Rocks

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Today’s 19.6-foot-high tide has flooded the Fish Creek trail and turned the meadow into a small lake. In the lake’s center a dozen mallards shelter from the wind on two tiny islands. Aki whines. She doesn’t like the wind. The little dog and I detour around the flooded trail and slip into sheltering woods. 

            We walk around the pond, stopping to puzzle over a curling line of otter tracks made in the deteriorating pond ice. Three islands of poop mark the beginning of the track line, sitting on pillars of ice four or five centimeters tall. The scat must have sheltered the ice beneath it from eroding rain. Now each piece of otter poop sat atop its own Eddystone rock, marking the otter’s passage.    

Happy it is Still Winter

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I am leaving the car in the driveway this morning because of the snow. A new storm moved off the Pacific last night, covering the downtown streets with high-moisture-content snow. Usually, the first car to make tracks in it will have no trouble. The second one can end up sliding down the street. That’s what happened to a snow plough this morning. It slid sideways down Gold Street until coming to a stop against a traffic barrier.

            Aki doesn’t mind keeping it local. She trots in front of me down our street and turns up Gold. The poodle-mix leads me up Basin Road, passing under a birch tree full of dark-eyed junkos. My little dog ignored the little birds. She was too busy checking out dog scents. 

            Worried about her safety, I keep Aki on lead until we reach the Perseverance Trail parking lot. After being released, she takes advantage of her freedom to pay sniff and chase with two other dogs. While enjoys herself, I study the shimmering light coming through ice cycles clinging to the undersides of cliff rocks. Another dog walker pulls me out of my reverie by saying, “What a beautiful day. I am so glad that winter is not over.” Aki, who has just rolled in the new snow, must agree.

Little Brat

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Aki, you little brat! The little poodle-mix had just trotted up to the campground ski trail, threw me a quick look, and took off.  As I wait for her return, I fume. This was not in the plan. My plan would have me skiing along the lake edge to take advantage of the conditions. If we had stuck to my plan, my skis would be swishing through the three centimeters of powder covering well-packed snow. I could enjoy seeing sun on the glacier before the clouds returned. 

            After steaming for a few minutes, I take off after Aki. Another skier tells me that she is a half a klick up the trail, playing with an Australian Shepard. That’s where I find her. That’s where I place her on a leash. Holding it in one hand and both of my poles in the other, I ski the packed trail to a place where it almost touches the river. 

            After stepping out of my skis, I take Aki off lead. She shakes, stretches, and yawns. If she learned any lessons from her time on lead, she is not going to admit it. We head up the river to the lake. Clouds now block the sun and hide the Mendenhall Towers. The flat light makes it hard to see details in the snow. But the conditions allow me to ski in any direction. We are the first to track the lake snow since yesterday’s storm. When Aki peers through a mask of snow that has collected on her face, I can help but smile.  

Raven Games

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Today I’d be reduced to talking about the weather if not for the raven. Even though channel wind drove rain and snow into its side, the big black bird perched on the top of an old beach piling, lifted its massive beak skyward and croaked out an announcement of our arrival on the Sheep Creek delta. 

            The little dog ignored the raven, concentrating instead on checking scents left on this popular dog walking beach. We walked along a grass covered dune, keeping the wind, and I thought, the raven at our backs. But it was waiting for us after we crossed a flooding stream. I expected the raven to keep a respectful distance between itself and us. Instead it walked toward Aki, rocking from side to side, turning every fourth step into a hop, swishing its tail in what I took to be a provocative manner. 

            Aki mocked charged the raven, which flew a few meters down the beach. In less than a minute it was waddling its way to the little dog. One of the smartest of birds, the raven could have been teasing my poodle-mix. But it could have had darker intentions. Aki didn’t wait to find out. She growled again. Perhaps bored with its game of taunt-the-poodle, the raven flew off.

False Retreat

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This morning the little dog and I sought a trail that wasn’t covered with mushy snow. We found it in the strip of forest that curls around the north end of Douglas Island. The trail there was bare and made for easy walking except where remnants of snow covered the path. An invisible cloud of small birds—dark-eyed juncos and chickadees—almost deafened us with their insect-like chirping. 

            Water poured over the beaver’s dam, which was still covered with decaying ice. Yellow-green shoots of skunk cabbage pushed up through the ice. It felt like winter had abandoned the forest, retreating into the still snow-covered mountains of the Douglas Island Ridge. 

            On the beach fronting the forest, eagles relaxed on the top of waterside-rocks. A scattering of mallards waddled in and out of tiny lines of surf. High tides had flushed away most of the snow from the beach. But no green leaves climbed up the dead stalks of beach grass. Is this another false spring?  

Almost Empty

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Aki doesn’t think that this is a good idea. From the forest edge she watches me work across a frozen marsh toward Peterson Creek. I skirt inch thick plates of ice left on the march by the last high tide to reach the water. Two wind blown spruce form a bridge over the creek. Maybe the little dog is worried that I will use the fallen spruce to reach the opposite bank. 

            I’ve no desire to cross to the other side. We have already explored it, using a man-made bridge. We crossed it to check an eagle’s nest near the forest’s edge to learn whether it has been reoccupied. It was empty. So was the northern half of Stephen’s passage. Snow squalls obscured our view of Admiralty Island, except for a line of snow-covered peaks that glowed through the grey clouds.  Near Young’s Bay, an out of season salmon seine boat chugged along the Admiralty shore.

A Half Hour of Wilderness

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            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.