"Near my home in Anchorage, a strip of birch and spruce woods runs from a residential street out to the edge of a bluff overlooking a sweeping expanse of wetland. In the spring, I like to watch from the bluff as migrating birds arrive from as far away as the Southern Hemisphere. They are drawn to the mild summer days with no ends, like perpetual mornings."
"The sense of peace I derive from these observations is profound. I find it deeply reassuring to witness animals interacting with one another and with the landscape, as I imagine they have for thousands of years. Theirs is a self-sustaining community with its own etiquettes and hierarchies, personalities and dramas, unburdened by the preoccupations of humankind. One spring day, as I walked the unmarked trail along the base of the bluff, I stopped dead at the unmistakable sight of grizzly tracks in the mud."
Near Anchorage, a strip of birch and spruce woods leads to a bluff overlooking wetlands where migrating birds arrive from the Southern Hemisphere. Activity concentrates along the high-tide line of Cook Inlet, visible through a spotting scope that reveals diving terns, stalking sandhill cranes and swift-moving shorebirds. The scene produces a deep sense of peace and reassurance in witnessing animals interacting with one another and with the landscape in established hierarchies and etiquettes. Unexpected signs, such as fresh grizzly tracks in the mud, punctuate the experience and highlight the limited human grasp of these complex natural lives.
Read at High Country News
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