Wind Songs: Eagles at Eagle Beach

My Mountain Boy stood less than 15 feet from this beautiful eagle on the beach tonight, and spent at least five minutes standing directly in front of him taking pictures, walking slowly, and quietly and gently talking to this bird.

LC got close to the eagle, and then closer and then closer, until he finally looked behind at me and shrugged his shoulders, obviously surprised that this very beautiful bird was allowing him to get to almost within arms reach.

Jamie and I were standing about 20 feet behind LC, and I was afraid to either move or breathe - afraid that I would scare our new friend into flight.

I have never experienced anything quite like what I saw tonight.

It was exciting. It was mesmorizing. It was unspeakably fragile and strong at the same time.

My Mountain Boy and I both took many pictures. There are only a very few in this blog post, and I will post more tomorrow......more of this amazing experience that occurred late in our visit to Eagle Beach.

We arrived at the beach at around 5pm after I rushed home from work.

My Mountain Boy had called me at about 11am this morning to ask me what the weather was doing in Juneau. I told him that the skies were grey and cloudy.

He gleefully told me that the sky was blue and the weather was sunny and warm Out the Road.

Finally finally it was sunny and warm again.

By 2pm I was clock watching. Juneau skies were also blue, and I was trying hard but unsuccessfully to focus on work. I needed to be outside. I needed to be Out the Road, and outside, and with my Mountain Boy and my dog.....

When we first arrived at the beach we headed away from the open channel and the Chilkat Mountains, and in the direction of the stream at the back of the beach that is close to the campground.

LC had been drawn to the campground area because there was a lot of noise and commotion coming from huge numbers of seagulls and ravens. The sky was alive with birds.

When we arrived at the handicapped bridge we immediately saw that there were large salmon in the stream that were trying mightily to swim upstream.

Swirling and turning and fighting to make their way up the shallow stream, we looked more closely and saw that there were also a number of dead salmon along the shore.

The water in the stream they were trying to swim up was very shallow, but we climbed off the bridge and down to the shoreline, and managed to spend a few minutes watching other salmon swirling together in the deep eddies, trying to spawn.

Me fighting with the Jamie's leash in the tall grass along the riverbed.......

And then we walked back up to the beach, and were greeted by the mountain range - glistening in the sun, in that magical way that I have never seen before coming to Alaska.

The mountains are beautiful, rugged, wonderful..........looking from Eagle Beach across the freezing cold glacier-fed river over to the Boy Scout Beach.

Nobody in Juneau takes the sun for granted.

My Mountain Boy and I walked along the beach in awe that this is the same beach that we have walked so many times in the past five weeks - almost all of it in cold temperatures, grey skies, drizzling rain.

It does not even feel like the same place when the the sun is out and the weather is warm and dry......

My Mountain Boy and my dog walking like little kids in the puddles........

Wilson..........

And Dunsford in 2010.

I really get a kick out of the towers and alters and patterns that Juneauites seem to feel compelled to make across rocky beaches throughout the city.

I need to make one one day. I think it is about time to make an alter of my own........

The tide was out, and we all walked on the sand that would be underwater in just a few hours.

I had never seen the tide so low, and we walked out a long way on the beach - taking pictures of the mountains and the eagles and the glacier and the pine trees and the seagulls and ravens.

It was a very quiet and wonderful way to spend a late afternoon on what actually felt like a "summer day"

It was only this morning before I left for work, that LC told me in disgust, in what was yet another cloudy grey morning, that he had never seen a summer like this in his life.

Truthfully I haven't either.

It has rained a lot since he arrived. Most days have been cool, and some have been downright cold.

But today was summer in Alaska. Today it FELT like summer..........

Today was a gift, and we both gratefully accepted it.

The further out we walked, the more of the glacier we could see, until we finally had an outstanding sighting of this very beautiful place,

I would love to walk to it. And would love to walk in those mountains..........

A young eagle perched happily on a log close to the water. There were eagles everywhere today.

Eagles really do seem to be everywhere right now. They are well fed, mated (I very often see pairs of eagles riding the winds nowadays) and I never get tired of seeing them. They are wonderful.

Birds, birds and more birds..........

And here is OUR bird.

He stood in a shallow patch of water in the sand for a very long time. I took some pictures of him from a distance, and then gradually continued to take more pictures as I walked closer.

Even then I was amazed that I could get so close without him flying away.

Eventually I got close enough that I began to wonder if he was injured, but then he took flight. Only to land on a log about 50 feet away.

My Mountain Boy walked towards him continuing to take pictures, and got within 15 feet of him before stopping.

Again, we both expected that he would be scared of us as we got closer, but although he was definately aware of us he seemed in no hurry to leave.

My Mountain Boy took pictures, and gently talked to him as he walked closer.

I stood there watching LC intimately communing with this very beautiful and magestic bird, and wondered just how long this extraordinary encounter would last.