Category Archives: Poodle

Boat Ramp Birds

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Judging by the bird activity near the North Douglas Boat Ramp, there is a lot of food lying around here. One eagle sits alone near the water line. At least three more call abuse upon it from nearby spruce trees. A murder of crows struts near the boat ramp until flushed by a patrol of the larger ravens. After one of the ravens swoops her, Aki keeps to the brush line.

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One of the wonders of living in raven country is being able to hear the whoosh their wings make during flight. But you have to be close. This morning, Aki wishes to never hear the sound again.

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A raven could knock the wind out of my poodle-mix if it cared to. With me around, there would be no point in such a display of malice. The raven would be chased off before it could do more than gloat. Besides, ravens like to tease dogs. They would rather pluck a bit of fur from Aki’s back than flatten her.

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Mates

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Fog is easier to see on a beach but you can discern its presence inside a thick forest. Aki and I have no problem detecting the way it thickens the air in the Treadwell forest.  She pays it little attention. Fog doesn’t diminish the rich smells she searches for in the forest.

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The little dog is slow to follow me from the forest down a grassy trail to Sandy Beach. As I wait for her to catch up I spot the resident pair of eagles on top of the old mine ventilation shaft. They appear to be gossiping, although with their profiles softened by fog it is hard to tell. More than one person has noticed how eagle pairs interact like long-suffering human couples who keep together for the sake of the kids. One is almost always scolding the other. The one receiving the dressing down will bow and shrink like a penitent. This pair looks like a couple of drinkers leaning toward each other over their Alaskan beers.

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Aki finally pushes through the splash-zone grass to join me on the beach and spots a canine friend waiting for her. Even though they are both over ten human years old, they chase each other over the sand like puppies. Now the eagles have something to gossip about.

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Aki As Kingfisher

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Should dogs have spirit animals? If Aki had one, it would be the belted kingfisher. We spot the feisty little birds on many of our rain forest walks. This morning, one burst out of a spruce tree chattering abuse, flew over a moraine lake that I was photographing, did a barrel roll and disappeared into a balsam popular tree in fall color. If you had wings little dog, that would be you.

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Aki, who had once chased a black bear up a tree close to the kingfisher’s roost with only her bark and attitude, gave me her “Don’t be Stupid” look.

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It had been raining where we started this walk through the glacier moraine but now it has stopped. No drops strike the lake to ruin the reflection of the poplars in high color. I’d expect ducks or even transiting swans to be resting on the lake. But only the kingfisher makes an appearance.

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The Brightest Color

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This morning, Aki’s red coat might be the most colorful thing in the rain forest. Without the sun to charge their colors, the yellowing devil’s club leaves look as dull as the dying blueberry leaves that surround them.  There is not much more to stimulate our retinas on the beach.

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The tide is out, exposing the Shaman Island causeway. But soon that distraction will be covered by the soft gray sea. The skeleton stalks of last summer’s cow parsnip flowers have a permanent stoop, as if they are supplicants that prayed all their lives to the island. It’s one of those testing days that help newcomers decide if they can winter over in Alaska.

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Aki is enjoying herself sniffing and peeing. When the rain load in her fur gets too heavy, she just shakes it all away.

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Lingon Berries

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On the cusp of summer and autumn, around the equinox, we always search the mountain muskegs for lingon berries. Aki generally finds these expeditions to be boring. Today’s search for the wine-red berries is no exception.

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It is not raining but last night’s downpour has loaded down the muskeg plants with water. Soon the little dog is soaked. Because her other human I are moving slowing, she has to do a lot of standing around. Soon, she is shivering. But she doesn’t whine.

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Watching me plop lingon berries in my picking bucket, Aki nuzzles my hand, like she does when she wants a treat. I pick a half-a-dozen more berries and offer them to the little dog. She eats them out of the palm of my hand and asks for more.

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Eat time I fill my palm with berries she eats them, like a horse eats oats from a wrangler’s hand. Since Lingon berries are as tart as blueberries are sweet, I am surprised that Aki likes them.

 

 

Blasted Jays

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We’d be alone on the Gastineau Meadows if not for the Stellar’s jays. Aki could enjoy the touch of morning sunshine that warms her curls if the birds would just shut up. Two of the birds follow us like private security guards on a gated estate. The little poodle-mix and I are persons of interest.

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Turn about being fair play, I switch my attention from the glowing meadow grasses to the jays; watch their pump and glide flight along the trailside trees. They are too beautiful to be so grumpy. When we have demonstrated our harmlessness, the jays fly to another section of the meadow where one chases the other out of a tree, chattering abuse the whole time.

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Peaking into Winter

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We will soon be facing seven months of winter so why and I taking Aki into the mountains. We could have taken a sea level hike, maybe even taken a nap in the late summer sun. But ice and cold bring beauty. That is certainly true of this mountain meadow.

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Frost had whitened the entire meadow before the sun climbed above the Douglas Island ridge. But it has softened to dew everywhere the sun touched. In their fall colors of red, yellow and order, most of the meadow plants still sparkle with moisture. But their dramatic display will end when they dry out in the sun.

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Last night’s temperatures froze over the meadow ponds. The new ice grips the long legs of a water strider that was trapped by the sudden freeze.  I wonder if it will be alive when the ice melts.

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Hoping to locate some ripe lingonberries, I leave the gravel trail and walk on to the meadow. The muskeg is crunchy with ice and seems to break underfoot. I can’t find any lingonberries. Just one low-bush blueberry. After eating it, I look for Aki and find her planted near the gravel trail. She makes me feel guilty for damaging the fragile muskeg with my boot prints. I try to ignore her distain but, as is often the case, she will win the battle.

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Who Will Send The Rain?

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We are going to pay for this sometime. That’s what I’d tell Aki if she wasn’t charging after her Frisbee.  Normally the Rain Forest monsoon season starts in September and continues until the first winter high-pressure system settles over the ice field. But we have only had a few drops of rain since August. Aki doesn’t complain. She lives in the moment and right now the moment is providing her with sunshine.

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The little dog, her other human and I are walking along the southwest shore of Mendenhall Lake. The lake is flat calm, its surface broken only by incoming silver salmon. The sun enhances the yellow of cottonwood leaves and lightens the British racing green color of the surrounding spruce trees.

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For the first time since last spring, Aki slips on ice. Shaded puddles are cover with a thick skim of it. When the sun first touches the beach pebbles, they sparkle with new-formed ice. But in minutes they dull to normal.

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They Are Back

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The birds are back little dog. Looking up from a scent spot that has occupied her attention for the last minute, Aki gives me a “Dah” look.  She might think I am referring to the adult bald eagle that had been feeding a few feet away when we reached the Shaman Island beach. The big bird flew off to a glacier erratic on the other side of Peterson Creek and landed. From that vantage point and safe from poodles, it waits for us to leave so it can return to its feast.

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No Aki, I am not referring to that eagle or the other one roosting nearby. Look there. I point toward the island where a small raft of harlequin ducks are performing the synchronized swimming routine their kind performs when feeding. All summer the harlequins have been hanging out on the outer coast with red-breasted mergansers and the other fish ducks. The little bay has been lonely in their absence.  It’s good to have them back. Closer to the beach, a smaller raft of widgeons have their heads in the water feeding.  These guys must be heading south.

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We passed other signs of fall along the forest trail that we used to get to this beach.  The leaves of wild crabapple trees and blueberry bushes were in high autumn colors. Some of the devil’s club and skunk cabbage were yellowing. And the downy woodpeckers that seem to only appear at the change of seasons, were hammering away at old growth spruce and hemlock trees.

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Italian Light

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We are more than thirty miles away from home. Within a few miles on either side of us, bears are chasing spawning salmon along our favorite hiking trails. Not wanting them to chase the little dog, I chose this walk along the beaches of Bridget Cove. Strong sun makes Aki squint as we walk along the first beach, giving her a skeptical look. Maybe she can’t accept the apparent lack of waterfowl and gulls that normally bounce along the cove’s waters.

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The trail takes us up and over a series of headlands and then across a broad beach. Here a family enjoys a picnic so I put Aki on her leash. Otherwise she will try to make friends with the family’s snarly-sounding dog and beg for food.  We move past the family and through another headland forest before dropping down to our lunch spot—a pocket beach rarely visited by other trail users. Today’s strong north wind is driving lines of waves into the cove that sparkle in the strong light. We could be in Cinque Terra nursing an afternoon expresso if not for the two bickering eagles, the lack of terra cota colored buildings, and the bodies of jelly fish that have grounded themselves on the beach during the last high tide.

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The jellies are compressed wonders. The image of this one could be of a far off nebula captured by the Hubble Telescope.

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