Eagles at Auke Bay

This boat is located in Auke Bay and is for sale.  And LC has been drooling over this boat since he arrived in Juneau a month ago.

It costs a fair amount of money, and although we would both love to own a boat because it would open up an entire world of adventure for both of us, our life in Alaska is still too new to make that kind of committment.

But it never hurts to look, to plan, to aspire, to keep our eyes open to see what is out there and what options may be available if and when we decide to go that route.

While my Mountain Boy was still drooling, I walked down to Statter Harbor intending to simply use the restroom and meet him there.

As I was walking down the hill I snapped a couple of harbor pictures and then looked to my right, and saw a bunch of eagles resting on rocks by the edge of the water. 

I instantly headed in that direction wanting to take some pictures of this beautiful group before they disappeared.

This adolescent was sitting comfortably on the rail of a boardwalk by himself at first, and then accompanied by a couple of ravens.  Eagles, once they find a quiet place to rest, seem to enjoy staying in one place for a while.  And this guy was no exception.

I, and then with LC, stayed in the area for quite a while watching and taking pictures of all the eagles along the beach, and this young eagle stayed in one place the entire time.

For a while when I first started seeing these speckled birds, I thought that they were hawks.  Only after talking with someone I worked with in the spring did I realize that these speckled birds were adolescent eagles, who will not get the typical white head and white tail until they are about three years old.

After watching them for a while we realized that these guys were at first protecting fish they had secured, and then were fighting over them.  It was all very cool and very very interesting to watch - the posturing, the smaller birds trying mightily to get part of the treasure for themselves, the brief fights over food.....

As we were snapping pictures of the eagles on the rocks we looked over to the other side of the cove and realized that there were many many eagles resting on the beach.  We drove down the road just a minute, pulled into another parking area and walked along yet another boardwalk to take pictures of over 30 eagles.

It is salmon season, these birds are now very big and healthy looking and well fed.

It was a lovely morning, and the water was very calm.

I got very excited last night because the weather forecast for today was calling for mostly sunny.

Mostly sunny????  The weather forecast for Juneau NEVER calls for mostly sunny!!! 

The best I have ever seen, regardless of how wonderful and sunny and warm and clear it has ever been in the six months I have been here, has been a forecast of "partly cloudy" 

Partly cloudy is the code phrase in Juneau for gorgeous, so when it said mostly sunny I believed them.

Sucker.  Sucker patch.  Sucker.  Fall for it every time...........

By this morning it was calm, dry, relatively warm, and cloudy.  No sun to be seen and no sun in the forecast.  Darn.

But when you see scenes like this in front of you, it is beautiful none-the-less......

My Mountain Boy beside one of the very cute wooden sentries to the boardwalk.

We're going to buy a salmon rod and reel off Craigslist this afternoon.

And one last look at this beautiful, quiet, serene adolescent eagle.