Just Passing Through Officer

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Aki and I are walking along the verge of a highway that curves around Fritz Cove. I didn’t notice any cars have passing since we started. But one or two might have slipped by while we watched the seal. It hovered just off shore, not far from a scattering of deer bones on the beach. The seal gave us a long, sad stare, like a high school actress emoting loneliness in drama class. 

            It slips under the water, barely disturbing the surface. When it returns, it holds a deer bone in its mouth. Now it looks like a dog, wanting to play a game of fetch. When we move down the road, the seal disappears again. If we had stuck around, we might have been able to watch it snake onto the beach and grab another bone. 

            In a nearby spruce tree, a bald eagle screeches out a warning. It gives us a stern look that reminds me of the one saved by policemen for vagrants weighed down with burglary tools. When two other eagles return the screech, I take my hands from my pockets and affect an interest in something on the opposite side of the cove. A beam of sun has just powered through the cloud cover to light up the tips of spruce on an island, frosting the fall green trees with a thin layer of summer.

Following the Beaver’s Trail

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Thunder Mountain still hides the sun when we approach Crystal Lake. Aki, who moved out in front a few minutes ago, turns her head to watch me peering through the lake mist. I can just make out a stand of yellowing cottonwood trees that line a marshy shore. On the lake a herd of canvasback ducks could be conferring over a map of their southern migration route and I wouldn’t be able to see them. 

            Feeling Aki’s impatience, I follow her toward the beaver village at the opposite end of the lake. The sun catches us just before we reach the village, it’s reflection in the water looking like a narrow spotlight being eased above the mountain’s silhouette. The sudden blast of sunlight destroys the lake mist and deepens the fall colors. It makes Mt. Stroller White stand out against the blue sky. 

            I want to take a trail through the Troll Woods pioneered by tree cutting beavers. It winds around three small lakes before returning its users to Crystal Lake. Aki, who loves beaver scent, is already trotting down it. I hesitate, thinking about the Forest Service sign posted at the trailhead. It warns walkers to beware of the local bears, who have a recent history of hostile interactions with dogs. 

            I table my concerns and follow the little dog. The trail she selected leads away from salmon streams and into an area that would offer little to a hungry bear.  

Cross the Rainbow

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It rained hard last night, a real soaker that energized Gold Creek to a dangerous level. Aki and I waited all morning for the storm to stop or at least slow down. When it began to tail back, we headed out to Fish Creek and found it overflowing it banks and carving out new channels through the old growth forest. But the rain had stopped.

            Three eagles circled above the creek but I could not figure out what they were hunting. Until we reached the creek mouth, the only other evidence of life would be a three-toed woodpecker prospecting for bugs in the bark of an alder. 

            Just last week the creek and the estuary that it floods into were empty of bird life. This morning giant rafts of mallards search for food there. The boys are back for the winter. I hope that most of them will survive hunting season. An eagle makes a low pass over the raft, flushing a dozen ducks to flight, then returns with empty talons to the top of a spruce tree. 

            A hundred-bird murder of crows occupy the beach. They rise as a thin, black cloud and fly toward another eagle, harassing it until to takes shelter in a tall cottonwood tree. Then the crows fly across the face of Mendenhall Glacier just as the sun arcs a rainbow across their path. Remember your Bible, little dog. God filled the sky above Noah’s grounded ark as a sign that he would never again flood the world with rain. The rainbow fades just then, and the first drops of another storm start soaking into the poodle-mix’s fur.   

Quieting Down

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Raindrops dimple the surface of glacial stream. Some hit an expanding bull’s eye formed by a salmon’s leap. The rain glistens spruce needles and yellow cottonwood leaves. It soaks into the feathers of two bald eagles that watch the salmon’s antics from their usual perches. A week ago, busloads of noisy tourists would have been taking selfies with one of the eagles in the background. This morning only a silver-haired Juneauite pays the birds any attention. 

When one of the eagles flies out and over Mendenhall Lake, the Juneau resident turns to share a memory of an October day where there were salmon in the pond and bears on the trail. This could be such a day.

The little dog and I say our goodbyes and take a roundabout way to Nugget Falls. It seems like every tree and bush along the way is in full fall color.  Water drips off yellowing willow leaves into cups made of pink and red blueberry leaves. Above, tall cottonwoods seem to tear apart low-lying clouds. It is easier to capture such beauty with a camera when it rains than when it shines. 

Aki gives me a cynical stare, as if she disapproves of the flowery descriptors running through my brain like a tickertape. Give me a break little dog. It’s been a noisy summer. 

Red Berries

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After the sun climbs above channel fog, Aki joins her other human and I on a muskeg meadow in full fall color. While her humans picked cranberries, the little poodle-mix ran back and forth between us, frustrated that we won’t respond to her urging to herd up. She doesn’t understand that berry picking is a solitary pursuit. Keeping our eyes on the muskeg, we must wander where the berries take us. 

I can understand Aki’s confusion. Stooped low with hands plucking berries from their mossy beds, we could be mistaken for grazers.   

            After an hour, Aki relaxes and investigates interesting smells. I stop thinking about the little dog until four eagles appear in the sky above us. They join a pair of ravens circling the meadow. Soon a magpie flies over our heads and lands a few hundred yards away. I look down and spot the naked leg bone of a deer. It’s the clue needed to solve the mystery of the birds. A hunter butchered a deer on the meadow, leaving enough on the ground to drawn in the birds. 

Ghost Fish

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It’s mid-morning on the Sheep Creek Delta. The ebb tide has sucked the delta almost dry. The creek, charged by recent rain, makes its noisy way to Gastineau Channel. Aki, why are all these eagles here? The little dog ignores my question and the eagles. Most of the big birds are creek side. One stands in the water trying to wrangle something onto a gravel bar. 

            The streams gallomps and I look for the source of the sound, expecting to see a late arriving salmon splashing back into the creek. No fish ghosts along the stream bottom. The spawn is gone. So, for a few seconds, is my little dog. With a dozen eagles within a few hundred yards of me, this raises concern. I spot the poodle-mix fifty meters away, sniffing a clump of beach grass. No eagle stirs to flight. I’m back with the little guy before one does. 

             We inadvertently flush a water dipper. It flies low and lands across the stream. Something in the stream must be keeping it and the eagles here. For the dipper it could be insects or small fish. The eagles prefer salmon. It doesn’t matter if they are dead or alive. Maybe these eagles filled up on salmon carcasses that wash up on the delta. Or maybe they have been hammering invisible salmon. 

Sun Break

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The weatherman promised Aki and I a sun break this morning but warned of heavy rain arriving just after the dinner hour. After that it will be rain and rain for days. How should we squander the promised light, little dog? Thinking that the sun will arrive at the higher mountain meadows first, I drive Aki up to one of our favorites. Fog-like clouds obscured the mountaintops when we arrive, threatening to make the weatherman a liar. Then a perfect circle of silver light begins to burn through the clouds. Maybe the man told us the truth.

             Last week the meadow was a carpet of bright yellows, reds, and oranges. It now looks faded in the gray light but starts to brighten as the sun burns its way through the cloud cover.

Aki initially refuses to follow me off a gravel trail and onto the wet muskeg.  She’d rather keep her paws dry, thank you very much. Ignoring the little anchor, I squelch my way deeper onto the meadow, pull a small plastic container from my pocket, and begin dropping bog cranberries into it. Each firm little berry makes a plopping sound when it hits the bottom of the container. Having developed a taste for wild cranberries, Aki is drawn onto the meadow by the sound. Soon she is nuzzling berries from my palm. By the time the sun has driven off the clouds I am picking to fill her stomach, not the little plastic container.   

Lights Going Out

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Yesterday I was surprised at the lack of waterfowl on the Fish Creek Delta. Today, I was more surprised to see mix rafts of mallards and Canada geese feeding in the shallows near the mouth of Peterson Creek. Further down the beach four harlequin ducks plucked young mussels from barely-submerged rocks. Soon they will be joined by golden eyes and the other winter residents of Fritz Cove.

            I have mixed feelings about these developments. It means a richer fall and winter for fans of water birds like the parti-colored harlequins. It also means a ramping up of the fall bird hunting season. The sound of shotgun blasts will once again mix with the sarcastic cackles of mallards and eagle screams. 

            The return of the winter birds usually accompanies the fading of fall colors in beachside woods. Yellow devil’s club leaves now brighten the dark under the forest canopy like reading lamps in a college library. I don’t look forward to the day in a week or two, when those lights go out. 

Gone to Rest

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No salmon swirl the surface of Fish Creek Pond or leap from it into the air. No scavengers bicker over salmon scraps on the pond beach. The time for that passed when last week’s high water swept the remaining pink salmon back into the sea. Last week three eagles, the little dog and I watched a dozen mergansers plop onto the lake. This morning only one of the redheaded duck works the pond. It looks to be a day of ones. 

             We will see several eagles, but all but one will be roosting alone. One gull will squawk and glide alone over the exposed tidal flats. I will watch a single dark eyed junco bounce on a thin elderberry branch. Toward the end of the walk we will spy on a dipper dancing in the pond shallows. Then we will watch the merganser abandon its monopoly on the pond.  

            Like merganser and the other loners, Aki and I don’t mind having the place to our selves—a land gone to rest after the salmon spawn. Gone, for now, are the clouds of eagles, crows, ducks, and gulls. Here, until the winter ducks return, is a place dominated by peace and the persistent wind.

Crisp

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No car was needed to reach the starting point for this morning’s walk. Nor did we need rain gear. The little dog and I just walked out the front door and headed toward Basin Road. The well-painted Craftsmen homes on that ancient Juneau street sparkled in the morning sun. Late summer flowers still bloomed in gardener boxes. If this weather continues, they will soon fall to our first hard frost. 

            We cross the old wooden trestle bridge and head toward the Perseverance Trail. I was hoping to enjoy the Gold Creek cottonwoods in full fall color. But last week’s windstorm stripped all the taller trees of leaves. Those that remain had already dulled to a pale yellow. Dramatic lighting made up for the faded colors. Light just skimming over the shoulder of Mt. Roberts splashed the bare-trunked trees with harsh light.