Low-Tide Walk

We love low tide walks, especially when it's a minus tide. We can get to places on the beach that are otherwise inaccessible most of the time. We walked two miles up the beach today from Kala Point to Fort Townsend. We saw only one other human. He stopped us to tell us he thought he might have seen two juvenile eagles. That was very exciting news. He left us, and we walked in the direction from which he had just come. Not 50 yards away was a huge bald eagle that he had just missed. So began our photographic odyssey during today's minus tide. (We highly recommend clicking on each photograph to get the full picture.)


For some reason this eagle was quite aware of our presence. We've be around eagles on most of our beach walks and none have reacted to us. Even though she was quite high in a tree, this one took off each time we crossed some comfort zone barrier for her.
She finally landed on a tree next to an old eagle nest site that had been seriously damaged and nearly destroyed a few years ago. We've been told that she returns to this spot because she probably had been a fledgling here.

Once we finally passed her for good, she took off and flew around calling in her high whistling way. It's a sound so high and light, it doesn't seem like it should be coming from a bird known for its prowess and might.

There were two Great Blue Herons sounding off as well. The low tide brings out all the hungry creatures. So, they may have been competing for space. One finally relented and took off.



On our walk back, there was one place on the beach where the fog held on and laid low.