Blue Berry Thiefs

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We are deep in the Troll Woods when Aki alerts, stiffening as she points her noise in the direction of recent motion. Then she barks. I stop berry picking and look where she is looking. Expecting a bear, I spot a gang of thrush, maybe ten of them, dive bombing blueberry bushes. The bushes bounce up and down as each bird flies away. They bounce again each time another thrush flies into them. 

            After thinning out the fruit on their targeted bush, thee birds fly over our heads and attack another one. I had suspected bears or people had plucked most of the bushes clean. But the bear poop we passed to get here was grass green, not berry blue. It must be the work of the tenacious thrush.   

All Hoovered Up

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Because I can’t find any blueberries, I snatch a huckleberry and pop it into my mouth. While expecting the usual insipid flavor, I am surprised by its rich, fruity taste. A blue jay screams abuse at us as I consider grabbing another berry. But Aki is ready to move on, so we do.            

 We head down to the beach, through an old growth forest soaking with recent rain. Few, if any of the berry bushes we pass have fruit. In any other summer, I’d except that the berries are having an off year. But the pandemic has forced more folks into the woods, where they can avoid contact with those with Covid. This might be the explanation. When I spot berries, they are growing too high above the ground for a person to reach.  

Sneaking Through the Bear’s Home

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A short waterfall connects Peterson Lake with salt water. That makes the lake a salt chuck. This morning Aki and I watched dog salmon power their way up the waterfall’s cascades and into the chuck. Two eagles and a handful of crows watched as well. One of the eagles had just feasted on a salmon not quite up to the climb. 

            Later we move to where a stream enters the lake. Soon the salmon we watched in the waterfall will swim across the lake and up the stream to their spawning grounds. It will be a one way trip. There will be more eagles and corvids there, as well as wading black bears. We take a casual trail that leads down the stream and hopefully away from the bears.

          We drop down onto a tidal meadow covered with six-foot-high grass. Neither Aki nor I can see over the grass but are able to follow a faint path that ends at a bear’s sleeping area. I would have taken another path if I had known where it would lead. The bears have crushed flat a section of meadow grass large enough for a small office. An eagle feather lays on one edge of the bear bed. 

            I should be worried that the bears will come back or that we may startled one of them when we walk further into the meadow. But Aki doesn’t act like she does when she smells bears. A half-a-dozen electric-blue dragon flies, called “darning needles” fly around the bear bed. Wouldn’t it be cool, little dog, if one of the darning needles landed on the eagle feather? As Aki gives me her, “you have got to be kidding stare” a darning needle alights on the feather just long enough for me to take its picture. 

Hot Dog

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Aki is banned from the house. She isn’t being punished for a sin. All she did was lower herself into a muskeg mudhole on a very warm morning. She and I were hot, exposed on an open berry picking meadow. Our bodies had been generating heat by helping us bounce over the soggy surface of the meadow.

Before she sought relief in the mud, I tried to cool Aki off by feeding her cloudberries. I chose the overripe ones because they dissolved easily on her tongue.

Juneau is enjoying our annual mid-summer sun spell. The clouds broke early in the week, after dumping near-record levels of rain on us. The weather folks are threatening a return of rain tonight. I’d have welcomed a brief rain shower when the little dog and I were picking cloudberries. Aki’s glad that we still have clear skies. After trying to sneak into the house, she curled herself on a patch of sun-warmed bricks and fell asleep.

Worms

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Yesterday Aki’s other human and I stumbled upon a moose and her two calves. We were walking along a trail near Anchorage. I was thankful that Aki was back in Juneau, getting the royal treatment from our friends. A momma moose once killed a man in Anchorage for coming too close to her calf. After we took a wide swing around the moose family, they returned to their wild, grassy feast. 

            I am thinking about our near-moose experience while picking berries near Juneau. We are harvesting this patch because it has not been visited by bears this summer. The berries are plump and plentiful, just as a hungry bear might prefer. The place is remote. The bear could expect privacy while he ate.

            I sit on the moss-covered floor to pick, bringing my berry bucket into Aki’s range. The little dog take advantage by stealing berries or a few seconds. She only does it once, even though I did nothing to discourage her. A half-an-hour later I learn the reason for her reticence. A small army of tiny worms crawls out of the berries on which they recently fed. When we get home, we will wash the berries in salt water, which will drive out the remaining worms. 

Sharing with the Bear

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The rain stopped this morning but the forest is still soaked. The leaves of blue berry bushes glisten. They darken the fabric of my rain pants when I brush against them. We take a meandering forest trail to reach the berry patch. 

            These are not Aki’s favorite kind of adventures. She has to get her exercise on the walks in and out of the forest. For more than an hour she is reduced to guard duty, ready to chase away ravens, squirrels or bears. Every few minutes I let her nuzzle a few berries from my palm. 

            The bushes bordering the patch are weighed down with fruit. But those further in have been stripped clean. Recently, a bear dropped a huge, blue pile of scat. I turn around and head for another patch. 

Drama Around the Eye of the Storm

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Wind and rain rattled the car on the drive out to the Brotherhood Bridge trailhead. It will do the same on the way home. But for this brief moment, Aki can feel the sun warm her fur. She and I are enjoying being in the eye of a mini-hurricane. While she half-squints her eyes against the sudden brightness, I snap pictures of a field of blooming fireweed. 

            Mendenhall Glacier peaks over the line of cottonwood trees that border the field. We take a trail that winds through the field, passing signs asking hikers to “be kind and wear masks.” Most of the people we pass are so kind. I move away from the one mask-less man.

            A half-a-kilometer up the trail Aki throws on the breaks as the sun disappears behind a thick blanket of clouds. She stands tough until I turn back toward the car. Fat rain drops are striking us as we reach it. Maybe the poodle-mix has a future as a weather forecaster. 

            Not wanting to rush home. I stop the car at the fish hatchery and watch a bald eagle struggle to hold onto to its spruce top roost. Other eagles watch the show from the top of the Juneau Empire Building. While Aki waits, dry inside the car, I stroll around, head up in spite of the rain, watching eagles hover in place above the beach. Most rely only on their wing and tail feathers for control. One has to drop down his talons like a jet on final approach, just to hold his own in the wind. 

Shared Frustration

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The white-headed eagle sounds as frustrated as I feel. An immature bald eagle has just almost crashed into it. The the chestnut-colored eagle slips into a sulk. Twenty feet away, another immature eagle casually grooms its wing feathers. Aki ignores all the noise. 

We are standing on the Fish Creek bridge, maybe thirty meters away from the avian drama. The stream, which is usually jammed with spawning salmon, looks empty. There must be fish somewhere. Minutes ago, one of the eagles dropped the severed head of a pink salmon on the trail just before we reached it. 

            We had planned on walking to the mouth of the stream. Then a stream of human fishermen passed us. Like the eagles, they are looking to catch some fish. Like the eagles, they are likely to end up frustrated. 

            I gather the little dog into the car and we head out to a berry picking spot that showed promise a few weeks ago. The place is bare, as if someone or something hoovered up all the blue berries, huckleberries and cloud berries. To make something out of the trip, we continue down the trail until it dumps us out on a beach. We have seen whales, sea lions, eagles, and seals from the beach. Once a northern harrier flew straight at me before dodging into the woods. Today, the sea and sky are empty. 

Welcome Calm

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There is nothing special about the Troll Woods this morning, certainly not the Payne’s gray skies. Mushrooms have to provide the highlights now that the wildflowers have gone to seed. But I am still happy to walk on the soft ground between moss-covered trees. 

            I don’t need a mask on the moraine. We won’t see another Covid spreader until we return to the car. Aki patrols out ahead to make sure we don’t surprise a momma bear and her cubs. One does crash through the woods but it moves away, not toward us. The peace floating between the trees can be felt on the skin.

            In a good, quiet mood, I follow the little dog to the shore of Crystal Lake, surprised by a clutch of mallards feeding a few feet away. They plunge their heads into the water until their rear ends point toward sky. Thick strands of grass encircle their beaks when they re-emerge.

Tundra Yellows

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Cloudberries struggle to grow in this Southern Alaskan meadow. When Aki’s other human and I lived on the Tundra in Western Alaska, the locals called named them, “salmonberries.” Harvested by Yup’ik families, salmonberries provided essential vitamins and nutrients all winter long. We pick them this morning, to enjoy their tundra flavors in our rain forest home.

            Aki trots between his humans, stopping long enough for one of us to feed her before moving over to the other one. Sometimes, she harvests one herself. Yesterday, after eating lots of blueberries, her poop turned blue. Tonight, it may take on the yellow tundra colors of cloudberries.