Category Archives: rain

Cranes

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It’s raining on this, the last morning of writer’s school—my last chance to spot a moose. I choose the Chester Creek trail even though it doesn’t offer the best chance of encountering big animals. I just hope to watch the sandhill cranes.

It’s windy. Last night a gust knocked over a portal toilet that is used by residents of a makeshift camp. Near downtown I pass a pile of black trash bags, each stuffed full of the possessions of homeless people. The only mammals I spot on the ride to Westchester Lagoon wear spandex and high tech rain gear.

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At the lagoon’s western edge the resident Canada geese wait out the wind. Comfortable in such a large group, each goose seems reluctant to yield enough space on the bike path for a jogger and I to pass. Surviving the geese traffic jam, I pedal to the mouth of a small slough. The ratcheting cry of two cranes reaches me as I put on the brakes. Another pair of sandhills flies low over the singing birds.

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The feeding pair stretch out their long necks when another crane call sounds. Soon five cranes gather to feed at the edge of salt water even as a bald eagle flies over at hunting height. One crane seems to stand guard as the others feed in pairs. There is no morning class scheduled to force my departure but I only stay ten minutes. The cranes might stay nearby all morning or explode into flight in seconds. But I feel sated, like I might after a rich dinner followed by cake.

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Muting the Robin’s Song

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The eagles are testy today. During an early morning hunt for king salmon at Tee Harbor the captain and I watched two mature bald eagles throw down over a baitfish. One hovered ten feet about the water. Using the strong north wind, it gently lowered its talons onto a herring. Getting only its tail feathers wet, it rose up with the fish and headed toward the beach. Another eagle snatched for the fish. The two birds locked talons and twirled in a ball just above the harbor waters. Whether because of centrifugal force or a loss of nerve, the attacker released and fell backwards into the water. I was about to suggest that we motor over and lift its stunned body out of danger with the net when it stirred. By slapping its wings onto the water it managed to lift itself into the air.

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Now Aki and I walk through a soaked forest to the beach. Weak storm light hits the early-summer growth on the understory plants. The illuminated green growth sparkles with beaded rainwater. Robin and thrush songs further brighten the mood until an eagle gives out a shrill lament. Aki, who has gained a sensible caution around the bid birds, moves next to me the trail. The first line of a poem someone should write pops into my head: Grief mutes the robin’s song.

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Respectful Silence

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Like ravens, gulls, and eagles, you can hear middle school boys in the woods long before you see them. A coven of them spreads out from a fire ring. All but the one sitting by a weak fire are soon out bouncing around the old growth, shouting at each other as the last of the crows and gulls abandon the nearby beach. The boys in the woods all wear bright colored rain gear and, to be honest, smiles.

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Aki and I came early to this forest for a quiet, if wet walk through forest and bird song to the beach. I also hoped to bird watch. On our last visit I spotted a small raft of northern shoveler ducks swimming past a stalking heron and godwit. When we break out of the woods today a formation of goldeneye ducks flies away in a panic, leaving the near in waters empty.

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I think of the Tlingit elder that once taught me how to make an octopus bag. She also taught my five-year-old daughter the raven and canoe dances. She told the young dancers to keep a respectful silence on our beaches and in our woods. “Don’t even skip rocks,” she said. Even that shows disrespect to wild things.

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No Enhancements

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rain drops 2

Nothing enhances the natural beauty of the rain forest today. Our latest extended thaw and rain melted away all winter enhancements. We are a month away from spring flowers and bird song. Looking into the forest from the beach is like watching a movie star buying butter at the store. She walks the dairy aisle in mom jeans and a tee shirt, not the figure enhancing dresses she wears for the cameras, but her grace of movement still demands attention. Even with her face bare, the store clerk is drawn to the expression in her eyes. Likewise, the forest that Aki and I walk through this morning has the fine bone structure of old growth spruce, genuine sparkle of rain drops striking a forest pond, and a sense of peace hard to find in Hollywood.

rain drops

Heard but not Seen

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ice

With the tide out at Outer Point, the table is set for the birds and other animals that harvest tidal zone. We should see eagles, ravens and maybe mink or otter. We hear the whooshing pulse of a raven’s wings over our heads, cheeping song of feeding chickadees, a sea lion’s snort than splash, a loud crash from the woods as if made by a panicked deer, and eagle complaints. We almost step on the remains of an otter’s sea urchin dinner and spot the sea lion before it dives. Aki and I watch one adult bald eagle arc around us as it heads down beach.   But otherwise, this is day to listen to learn until an approaching storm drowns out the lessons with heavy rain.

eagle

Stress Therapy

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seal(Note, this photo was taken another day at another place)

Aki and I walk under a canopy of cottonwood branches too bare of leaves to block the rain. When there is a break in the noise of children playing tag, I hear raindrops plopping into a drainage pond. It’s great that the kids, all weighed down in slickers and rubber knee boots, take such joy from playing in the rain. But, their presence adds tension to the walk. If she can, Aki will chase and bark at them in the same way she does with other dogs. Kids often take this the wrong way.

We manage to skirt the knot of kids and walk over to the deep-water remains of the collapsed glory hole. Six mallards float together like a raft on the other side of the hole and then burst into the air. A land otter abandons his stealth mode to watch the ducks land on the beach. A sea duck leaves the same beach and floats onto the waters of the glory hole. I stop and watch, no longer hearing the sound of kids, not noticing that the rain has stopped. I’m waiting for the otter to strike. I wait a long time during which the sea duck dives down and returns to the surface several times. During one dive, when he is under for more than a minute, I think he is lunch until I spot the otter, fifty feet away, still eying the mallards. The duck dips under again and doesn’t come up. The head of seal does, scoping the glory hole waters like a submarine periscope until spotting Aki and I.

Walking away, I feel the clam and peace that had been settling over me since I first spotted the otter. The worry stress from a possible Aki-kid encounter is gone and so, I suspect, are the agitations of this pre-Christmas day

Time to Get in the Game

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rain on lakeWe drive to one of the access points to the Mendenhall wetlands but don’t stop because pickup trucks fill almost all the parking spaces. Guys with guns must be hunting ducks along the trail. We head over to the Auk Lake Trail where we won’t hear explosions or see plummeting birds.

trailVolunteers using government money civilized this old lake muddy trail, packing gravel between straight spruce trees that stand like the two lines of a minuet. Aki trots down the trail as if being honored by soldiers holding drawn sabers over her head.

AkiIt rains hard enough to pockmark the lake but we have some protection in the trees. Enough wet gets through to charge a small stream. The watercourse passes under the trail through a culvert and emerges as a miniature waterfall. While Aki chases her orange Frisbee, I set a chunk of granite under the outfall. In season, birds might fan their wings in spray that bounces from the rock. In time, if nothing shifts the stone or clogs the culvert, the stream might turn rock into a bowl. After six decades of watching, I want to get in the game.