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Since it was our last morning in the field, most of the birders chose to scale San Juan Island’s 680-foot Mt. Young. The leaf and moss trail made our climb silent as we switched-backed through the under story and beneath the canopy of madrones, big leaf maples and douglas pines. Muffled by rustling trees and the spring dawn chorus of thrushes and chickadees, the calls of Black-throated Grays, Townsend’s, and Orange-crowns, were difficult to decipher.
On top, and although in sunshine, now enhanced by a freshening northwest breeze, the air was more than brisk. A flat platform of compressed ice-age rocks provided a “you can see forever” view of the archipelago’s western edge - Spieden Channel and Island, Stuart Island, and beyond the straight, Victoria and Sidney Harbor on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and across Haro Straight, the jagged snow covered Olympic Mountains.
An adult Bald Eagle and Red-tailed Hawk, neither pleased with each other’s presence, circled under fair weather fluffys which gave no hint of the rain on the charts for Friday. Seven-hundred feet below us were Roche Harbor, Wescott and Garrison Bays, and English Camp, where, in the meadow’s middle, stood an old growth dead snag with an Osprey nest at its top. A parent was in residence, and as we watched, in flew her partner.
Five days before, Jean and I had seen a Bald Eagle on Goose Island in Garrison Bay keeping a hawk eye on Wigeons and Buffleheads – probably the same, or mate of, the bird now riding the currents above us. Eagles and Ospreys (formally Sea Eagles) do not care for each other one bit. We wondered how this close proximity would work out.
Reluctant to leave the view behind, we descended the hill hiking on down to Roche Harbor. Milling about in front of the hotel where Teddy Roosevelt once stayed, Lillian and Ollie, our dear birding partners, told us they had seen Common Murres at the end of the main dock. Elderhostel buses were to pick us up at 11:30 - there was time.
The open bay was calm, and yes there were three Common Murre, a new species for the trip, in fact the first Alcids. As we watched them dive, and then anticipate where they would come up, our attention was drawn to a Bald Eagle flying right to left over the harbor heading for Pearl Island. In its talons he clutched a huge bundle of what looked like grass and/or moss. Ah, the final stages of nest restoration for this new season.
And, as the adult flew by us, perhaps 100 feet above and maybe 100 yards off the floating dock, a sizable feather left the bundle, or was it one of his own? The flight feather slowly drifted in the light breeze, zigzagging, rocking, finally touching the water’s surface.
Unlike Pete Dunne’s upset female hawk, “I asked for a stick, and he brought a log,” she was happy with her partner and thankful for the nest lining material. However, although pleased with her compliments, he was disappointed, for he thought there was a soft owl feather in that clutch of stuff. He thought best not to mention the loss. Maybe it was dropped during the flight from Davidson Head over the bay. Oh well, back for another load.
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