No hunting signs line the beach
Photo Album
It's
Sunday night and I'm back in town after a very pleasant late
spring weekend at Snettisham to celebrate my mother's birthday, earlier
in the week. We'd intended to come down a week ago and actually catch
her birthday, but a storm that never materialized kept us in town. The
weather this trip was much better, especially with the gift of the
Kathy M to use. After a couple of hasty side trips Friday morning (I
sent my mother to get a harbor parking permit while I loaded the boat,
then ran home to pick up the boat key) we headed over to the fuel dock
and then off to Snettisham late in the morning. The ride was pleasant,
a little choppier south of Grand Island, such that I was grateful for
the larger boat. Cailey, for her part, seemed to really enjoy her
padded seat. A whale or two blew and we passed some loons in Stephen's
Passage. Just over an hour and a half after pulling away from the dock
we glided into the beach, thankfully still fairly high and close to the
log despite it being two hours past high tide. We quickly unloaded and
I anchored the boat and hauled the last of the gear up to the lodge.
The vegetation around the path was reasonable, but around the fire pit
and the stairs it is already a jungle. I'd thought about bringing my
weed whacker but the weekend was supposed to be rainy, so I elected to
leave it behind.
After starting the systems and a little fire, we picked up the cards
from the motion sensor cameras. Or, one card, as the camera on the
bridge had not taken any videos. I took my mom to the shelf where the
bear carcass lay, relieved to find the camera intact but puzzled and
disappointed to find hardly a trace of bear. I was afraid that the
hunters had returned to move him, but on the rocks below we saw the
bones of one front leg and then the whole rib cage up the mountainside
wedged between two logs in an area that was heavily trampled. Someone
had drug the carcass there, someone with a lot of strength. The rear
leg that the hunters had left had evidently been ripped off the carcass
as it went up the hill, but the other front leg was still attached to
the ribs and vertebra. There was no flesh left, only bones and sinew.
We agreed to come back later and look for sign.
Back at the lodge we eagerly watched the videos from the camera, hugely
relieved that it had worked this time. The batteries were dead, but it
had taken videos for a little over a day. The first afternoon, the day
that I left, was dominated by three ravens. It was fascinating to watch
them pull at the carcass, mostly around the exposed backbone and
organs; the sounds they made in some of the videos were astounding.
That night a deer mouse appeared many times, though we never saw him
actually eat anything; I suspect he was nibbling off camera. In the
evening, a very unexpected creature showed up twice--a Wilson's
warbler! He pecked around the front of the carcass and I remembered the
tiny bugs that were beginning to be attracted to it. The next day began
with ravens which were quickly supplanted by eagles. First a juvenile
came in, joined by a transitional eagle with a brown flecked white
head, then an adult. Sometimes the ravens joined them, but mostly they
dominated until the batteries ran out. We didn't watch every video from
start to finish, but what we did see was captivating, especially the
interactions and tussles between birds.
By that time is was after three, so we had a late lunch of quesadillas
before walking upriver on the low tide. We encountered no fresh tracks.
We ate smoked salmon and snacks for dinner
while we watched great blue herons feeding in the shallows. The first
one that came in caught a small flounder that was really too big to
swallow. We watched his fascinating process of dropping and picking up
and gulping and dropping and picking up and gulping and shaking through
the spotting scope until he managed to choke it down. We were really
surprised that he continued to hunt after that! He was joined by a
second heron who quickly caught a small fish, maybe 7", greenish on top
and white on the bottom, a little wide in the mouth. The first heron
soon caught a very small, very silvery fish. It is evidently good
hunting out there! We chatted until bed, after which we both had very
cozy nights of sleep. Cailey smelled a bit like....well, probably like
decaying bear, so she got a spit bath before bed which made her very
tolerable. We both woke up early and lounged around in bed for a while
before heading to the lodge where I quickly installed a new filter on
the gray water system and put it all back together. The sink itself is
leaking a little, so it may need a new washer or new plumber's putty
(need to do some research there). The day was drizzling on and off and
a little chilly, so when we moved to my standard position on the porch
after breakfast we each wrapped up in a blanket/quilt. We chatted and
watched Wilson's warblers, a Pacific wren, and hermit thrushes move
around in the bushes. To my surprise, the currents, which had yet to
bud very much on my last trip, have still not budded out and appear to
have experienced about a 90% die off on my section of beach along with
the two elderberries on the downriver side. There are a couple of
stalks that have small green leaves, but for the most part they are
barren stands with green salmonberries among them. Very puzzling!
As the tide came in, we watched an eagle hunting in a circle of gulls
in the river; he actually hovered quite effectively a few feet above
the water before gently descending and grabbing fish--multiple fish I
think. He nibbled at them a couple of times and still had something
left over and I was reminded of watching an eagle pick up two fistfuls
of sandlance that murrelets were driving to the surface at Auke Rec
last weekend (which I happened to catch in binoculars while I was
watching the school boil above the hunting sea birds). When I looked at
the
gulls with binoculars I saw that there were hundreds of murrelets
around them sitting on the water.
We
stayed there for most of the morning, then had another round of
quesadillas for lunch. Then I managed to finish a task that had been
weighing on me--washing all the windows on the property and replacing
the UV reflective stickers with fresh ones to help the birds avoid
them. I also changed the blade on my skilsaw and read a little bit
before rallying for a big task before dinner: posting my property. I've
always been afraid of posting no hunting signs for fear of retaliation,
but the sorrow I feel over the death of that wonderful bear and the
possibility that signage might have saved its life, or might save the
life of a bear in the future, dissolved all uncertainty. I had custom
signs printed (Alaska law requires official signs to have the owner's
name and address on them) that only include "no hunting" and left out
"no trespassing" which I did not want to post. I don't mind people
walking on the property, I just don't want them hunting (plus I
think that would invite vandalism). I managed to get my little
generator started and cut a 45 degree angle in three 2x2 posts, then
headed out with my mom to set them up. We put the first post by the log
near the corner of the property, then two more along the shore line
toward the rocky point. The beach is mostly rock there but I found a
few places where there was good purchase for the posts. The upriver
boundary was a little trickier, as it is all rock, but we found a small
tree on a rocky promontory closer to the creek that looked like a good
prospect; I checked it out from below and my mom from above. That
required a return to the lodge for more signs and supplies. Before we
headed back, we moved the main piece of the recliner back onto the
porch and covered it, as we decided it was too heavy for us to want to
haul back to take to town. Then we picked up another sign at the lodge
and went back to the woods behind it where I posted a sign on the
opposite side of the tree with a boundary marker, just a few feet from
where my bear had lain when I found him. While there, we both scoured
the area for sign; my mom found an arear near the original site with
four or five degraded, grassy bear piles and we found a few other bits
and pieces nearby. Other than that, there was just the trodden path in
three directions from the current location of the rib cage. We both
agreed that the shelf where I believe the bear was shot was a perfect
little lookout with a commanding view of the land below from the back
of the lodge along the bear trail to the downriver exit, protected by
the walls of the waterfall channel from some angles, a logical place
for him to stop and see what followed. If only he had kept going. I
thought I might keep one of each of his legs and we tried (and failed)
to figure out which of the front legs was which; one of the back leg
bones was broken and we wondered if he had been shot there. None of
the other bones were damaged. We also pulled the rib cage from the
crevasse between two logs that it was lodged in, skin crawling at the
small maggots swarming underneath it. It took us a minute to figure
out which way the rib cage was pointed (the section with the hind leg
attached had broken off) until we realized that the rib cage on a bear
is larger toward the back, as that is where his belly is and where he
carried his weight (hence the bigger footprint of a back paw). I
carried the two front legs back to the lodge along with a rib and laid
them out next to it to further decay. Then I grabbed clippers and
headed back upriver to scale the rocky point, clip a few branches of
the stunted spruce tree growing there, and posted my sign. I was so
pleased with the whole process that I walked back along the water just
to see them all lined up. In theory, it's a tiny, tiny bear sanctuary.
By
that time I was thoroughly soaked, so I changed clothes and warmed up
by the fire my mom had lit before making a dinner of coho, pea pods,
and sourdough toasted in a skillet. We drank wine with spruce tips
(from the bough I'd cut) floating in it, which added a delightful
aroma and a hint of flavor. Again we chatted until about 9:30 and then
headed to bed for another cozy night of sleep beneath occasional heavy
showers. When I finally really woke up, I figured it was maybe 8:00,
which is typical when I feel like I've slept a long time at Snettisham.
To my shock, I discovered that it was 9:45 and I'd really just woken up
a little before that! Somewhat embarrassed, I headed to a warm and cozy
lodge. My mother, who'd been up for hours (!) headed out to clean up
the stuffing and styrofoam strewn about the forest from the destruction
of the recliner while I stayed behind to finish getting ready for the
day, after which I washed the dishes, packed up, and swept the lodge
before heading over the Harbor Seal to help my mother pick up the last
bits. It was a lot of work! Thankfully, the styrofoam had not
disintegrated into pieces smaller than a golf ball. I also picked up
the aluminum cans from the freshet that had burst and/or been
chewed. After that we set up motion sensor cameras, one on the rib
cage. Then we hauled all the hemlock siding I'd set aside for Fox Hole
at the Taku cabin out from under the lodge and ate lunch on the porch
as the sun came out and the Wilson's warbler started singing, downing
two delicious mimosas while we lingered over the inlet. Mom said she
thought that two of them were courting in the bushes while I was
inside, flitting around each other in a non-aggressive way. We both
managed to catch him signing in the sunshine in our binoculars. A
thrush also came through and there were two hummingbirds, though still
only rarely. All weekend until the night before there was only one, and
not a common visitor. Where did the others go? It seems like I usually
have a crowd even before fledging.
Finally
it was getting near high tide, so I shut down the systems,
moved all my gear onto the porch, and asked my mom to cover the windows
while I started loading everything down to the water. By the time I
brought the boat in a little after the tide turned, it was sprinkling
heavily. My mom handed lumber up to me and I placed it on the top of
the cabin, followed by all the recliner and other trash I was bringing
back and our gear. It was a very efficient operation with the two of
us. We puttered out into the river and tied the lumber to the top
securely before puttering back upriver to view my no hunting signs
again and then heading out. The huge assemblage of murrelets (and gulls
and loons in smaller numbers) was out in Gilbert Bay with a whale (we'd
had a whale in the inlet Friday as well, but not close in). Not far
from their property at the mouth of Snettisham we circled a large,
interesting ice berg with a covey of gulls on top. Smaller chunks were
floating down along the shoreline toward Tracy Arm and out into
Stephen's Passage, whether independent or fallen off of this one we
couldn't tell. Another whale blew out in Stephen's Passage. The calm of
the port gave way to a gentle following sea which built as we
approached Grave Point. By the time we reached the end of Grand Island,
we were getting a lot of spray and I finally realized that the seas
were then coming out of the Taku, which had been hinted of on the
river that morning. We sloshed around quite a lot and really could have
used the non-functional windshield wipers, but we made it past Arden
and into shelter, and back to the harbor with no incident, happy to
throw all our trash in the harbor dumpster on the way out!
