February Morning on the Spit

Annie Prevost is a writer and a keen observer of the natural world who lives in Bellingham. She is program chair of the Koma Kulshan chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society and a steward for a Whatcom Land Trust property.

Skinny Semiahmoo Spit Saturday morning,
One short mile: county park trying to be natural,
posh resort, upscale condos, yacht marina,
road and walking trails all squeezed
between two beaches — busy place.

Birds and birders watching them are busy too.
Birds dabble, dive, feed and fly.
Birders squint and peer through binocs’ and ‘scopes —
try to keep warm.

Brants, buffleheads, cormorants, common golden eyes

Birds don’t much mind people, but flee every time
Bald eagle, that dark terrorist of the sky,
swoops over.

Eagle nails a duck out on the sea, drops it —
two gulls rush in, start tearing it apart.
Those with ‘scopes say, it’s gory —
probably a scoter.

Harlequins, common loons, greater scaups, harrier

Adult eagle perches nonchalantly, barely 12 feet up
In a small leafless tree
Man walks boldly up, right in its face,
takes a picture.

More and more of our group approach
Eagle turns sideways, poses,
sun illuminating its fierce yellow hooked beak.
Wish I had my camera.

Then it flies — did we disturb it?
Seconds later some see the eagle grab a duck.
In no time we are looking down on the beach,
watching it speedily pluck its catch.
Soon it is tearing off flesh, making a big pink hole;
orange bill — it’s another white-winged scoter.

Mew gulls, canvas backs, long-tailed duck, red-necked grebe

Find a large dead bird under a shore pine.
Appears to be a common loon,
odd plastic bands on its wings.
Huh? It’s been neatly decapitated, legs and feet gone too.
Weird, something’s fishy here.

Ruddy duck, meadowlark, starlings, white-crowned sparrows

Two immature eagles perch in a snag — a snag
placed as mitigation for more condos to come.
Under snag man finds two black and white wings,
connected by bloody bones — eagle table-scraps.
Someone asked, where’s the head? —
probably scavenged.

Black turnstones, heron, pintail, red-breasted merganser

e=Mount Baker lifts its cloud cloak
baring a magnificent snowy head.
Sea sparkles in the sunshine,
brant trail eel grass from their bills
and cormorants dry wings.

Carnage and beauty, death and life,
no pretense in the real world.
Everybody must eat or die.
All that avian beauty and vitality
has but one purpose — survival to reproduce.

There is a knife sharp beauty to these daily deaths,
that are part and parcel of this unique and threatened spit.
We need not be horrified, it is an honor to so intimately
witness the cycle of life.

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Thanks to Paul Woodcock who leads a bird walk here monthly in winter for North Cascades Audubon and Whatcom Parks and Recreation.