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.

Sun, Wind, and Ice

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Sunshine, wind, and ice supply beauty but also risks. Looking for a walk out of the wind Aki and I start up the Upper Fish Creek Trail. A thin layer of drifting snow hides the icy spots on the trail. Even Aki slips when she steps on one. I slow to a creep. Even so, I push until we meet another dog walker returning to the trail head. He fell, hitting his head when he went down. 

            It’s too cold to risk continuing up the icy trail. But shafts of sunlight are backlighting the tree moss and illuminating normally dark parts of the streams. We push on for a half a kilometer until I slip and almost fall. Well little dog, it’s time to find a safer place to walk.

            We slip and slide back to the trailhead and walk towards salt water. Much of the trail is bare or covered with packed snow. If the wind wasn’t blowing hard, the little dog and I could loiter long enough to appreciate light sparkling the sheets of paper-thin sea ice left on the meadow grass by this morning’ retreating tide. 

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.   

No Time to Whine

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Something dark flashes on the bay’s surface and disappears. As I wonder whether it wasn’t an illusion, the thing reappears. Just as I identify it as a Dahl porpoise, it is gone. Aki and I are hiding from the rain under a picnic shelter. She’s had a good morning, meeting dogs and reading the pee mail. Me, not so much. Up until now, I’ve had to be content with sightings of three golden eye ducks and a handful of mallards. 

            Aki starts whining, making it clear that she is not onboard with my plan to wait for the porpoise to resurface. I ignore her for a minute and then give in. We will never see the porpoise again. The walk back to the car makes up for the porpoise disappointment. No snow covers the trail, except where there are breaks in the thick old growth canopy above it. These patches stand out in otherwise dusk-like forest, like strips of dayglo paint. An eagle screams interrupts the song of an unseen sparrow.  

            On the drive home we stop to watch a great blue heron fish near a raft of mallards. All the birds are working a smallish tidal lake near the ferry terminal. The heron looks grumpy. It hunches it shoulders and keeps it back turned to me. I wait for some action, maybe one of its lightning-fast attempts to spear a fish with its wicked beak. But he holds his “I can’t see you” pose until Aki begins to whine.     

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.  

I Used to Like Leaning Into the Wind

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Aki moves along a low berm, just high enough to protect her from the storm. I walk behind her, feeling the full force of the wind. It rushes along soft particles of snow that stream across the trail. I used to love leaning into the wind, little dog. Aki can’t hear me over the sound of wind and the surf hitting the Eagle River bar.

            Off shore, beyond the surf line, a dozen gulls harass a harbor seal. It gives the noisy crowd a classic stunned-seal expression. Three other seals ride up and down a standing wave in the middle of the river. They must be searching for the salmon smolt that slip down Eagle River to the sea this time of year. I hope to find geese or ducks sheltering from the storm along the river bank. Four mallard drakes do waddle into the river and fly a wide arc around us. 

            Feeling cold, and a little cheated, I lead Aki back to the car, leaning into the wind the whole way. We drive over the Peterson Lake salt chuck where Aki and I saw a trio of river otters last fall. The otters have a dugout condo on the north side of the chuck. But none show themselves while Aki and I explore. 

            A small raft of mergansers dive on salmon smolt in the ocean just off the chuck. They remind me of the importance of salmon to nature’s economy. In a few months the first of three waves of adult salmon will leap and power their way up the rocky salt chuck and into Peterson Lake. They will be the lucky ones. Many others will have already ended up as food for seals and sea lions, orcas and human fishermen. Once they have rested in the lake, the salmon will move into Peterson Creek to spawn or be eaten by bears. The bodies of those who manage to spawn will feed eagles, ravens, crows, and gulls or serve as fertilizer for the rain forest. 

No Eagles

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Aki and I returned home wet from the moraine. I was tired. Aki was not. She trotted over the top of snow that was too soft to support me. We were heading toward the river on a little used trail. With each step my legs plunged mid-calf through the covering snow. 

            I should have returned to the well-packed trail to circle Moose Lake. But I thought if I pushed on, we would be rewarded by one of those wilderness experiences that given to those who paddle or hike beyond the edge of nowhere. Maybe a wolf will appear out of the snow or we will spot a pair of tundra swans resting on a river eddy. At a minimum, there should be eagles. 

            The trail deteriorated as we neared the river. Aki, who seemed to float over the snow crust would charge ahead to check out scents or tracks and run back to check on me. With such encouragement I made it to the river. No wolf turned to look at us. No swans or even ducks floated on the river eddy. Clouds covered Mt. McGinnis. There were no eagles.