Archive for August, 2011


Pave Paradise (Video)

Filed Under: Lily Point Calling
Aug.07, 2011

As I started to gather information and put evidence together that would show the harmful effects that the planned parking lot would have on the eagles at Lily Point, I initially thought that it would be enough just to talk about it and quote Eagle experts and known impacts of humans on Eagles.

But when I didn’t get the reaction from officials that I though I would, I quickly realized that I had to actually show everyone with video and in living color what I’m talking about.

So when recently I got permission from Joni Mitchell to use her music, I knew I needed to bury myself in the years of footage I have and really show everyone a view of eagles that they’d never seen before. I had to let go of my not wanting to preview footage from the documentary I’m making, because this was just too important. So this video is in effect the eagles testimony.

I’m sure many of you have heard about how to act around Bears and the things that one needs to avoid when around them. For whatever reason humans tend to do the exact opposite of what they should do around animals and end up getting undesired reactions. People just don’t have the fear of Eagles like they do Bears. More importantly people don’t realize that they are a top predator just like Bears, and so aggressive behavior like staring at them or walking directly towards them is going to result in the Eagles flying away.

I’ve been working with the wild eagles of Point Roberts for over 15 years. They know who I am and they know where I live, and they will come visit me, and when I go to visit their territory I know how to show the proper respect, and not act in a threatening manner. I soon discovered that my knowledge and discipline worked with wild eagles wherever they were and so allowed me to get close to eagles in Oregon and California. I’ve also discovered that the State of Washington does not protect Eagles like they do in California and Oregon.  So even though this is about the Eagles in Lily Point, its also about Eagles everywhere in Washington.

I say this because when you watch the video you are going to see eagles up close and behaving in ways that most people would never see. The reason for this is that most visitors to Lily Point will only cause the Eagles to fly away. Eagles will tolerate small groups of 2-3 people entering their space, but once those groups get to be five or more then the Eagles will fly away automatically. A single person acting aggressively can also cause all the Eagles to leave the area too.

The scenes playing out in this video would quickly end if one dog showed up on the beach, or if a person gets within a 100 yards of these Eagles resting on the rocks and sandbar. This is why a Marine Reserve has a no dog policy, and is why Whatcom County Parks removal the “reserve” designation is harmful to the Eagles of Lily Point.

What makes Lily Point such prime Eagle habitat is the 200 foot high cliffs that provide a steady stream of updraft that enables the Eagles to move around without expending precious energy. The relative seclusion on the low tide area at the base of the cliffs provides a natural sanctuary for the Eagles that allows them to relax and interact without interference.

The adult Eagles will teach the Juvenile Eagles the finer points in aerial maneuvers and mock combat and defensive moves that they need to learn for survival. Remember that Eagles can only fly 28 minutes a day before they will expend too much energy and their metabolism will actually start consuming their own body tissue. This form of starvation has become the number one killer of Bald Eagles, and especially the Juvenile Eagles who have not developed their hunting skills and must rely of scavenging for food. The low tide scene you see played out in this video is essential to Eagles for they can easily find the small fish in the shallow waters of Lily Point.

When Eagles are soaring or moving around Lily Point on the updrafts generated by the cliffs they are not expending energy. They are getting a free ride as  they are able to cover 100’s of acres of feeding opportunities by just spreading their wings. Coupled with the fact that Lily Point is a source of abundant food for Eagles, makes these the main reasons why Lily Point is the #1 eagle habitat in the Salish Sea. This is why Eagles come here from 100’s of miles away. This is why Point Roberts has the highest density of Eagle nests anywhere in North America.

So what exactly is all the fuss about? Right now the visitors to Lily Point are small in number and short in duration, which is just on the edge of being tolerable to Eagles. Also most of the visitors don’t bother to traverse the steep trail to the beach. Those who do tend to be hikers who are only passing through. This huge parking lot that will accommodate 30 cars also has a road circling it that will bring in tour buses will transform and destroy this fragile balance by bringing in large groups of people that will spread out will drive away all the eagles from the entire region.

In the nesting season they will force the adults from the nest and the fragile eggs that won’t survive them being left in the cold air. In the winter the noisy cars and bikes traveling on gravel paths will drive them away from their night roost’s which will expose them to the cold and wet weather. Of course this is Eagle 101 knowledge and so for WDFW & USFWS to not stand up and tell Whatcom County Parks how devastating this parking lot will be to the Eagles, and for the Parks staff to not listen to the reality of their plan is to betray the spirit of our National Symbol of Freedom. So  in the video the only clip not form Lily Point is the one view of the eagle flying over the American flag. I added this clip from the day on my deck in South Beach when I was filming the eagle and thought, gee it would be cool if the eagle would fly over the American flag, and to my amazement that’s exactly what the Eagle did.

This parking lot will result in the death of Eagles. I hope this video will help you to see why this is not a question of if?, but a question of when? Nobody in all the State and Federal agencies making policies have ever been to Lily Point, let alone see Eagles as I’ve shown all of you in this video. I can only hope that seeing is believing and that everyone will realize what a great investment was made in 2008 to preserve Lily Point. The reason why Lily Point was primarily protected for the Eagles should now be clear to see. For everyone it is important to understand that this is about Eagles everywhere and not just their rights granted under Federal law, but also about our responsibility to not interfere with nature.

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An Innocent Child

Filed Under: Lily Point Calling, Lily Point History, Lily Point yesterday & today
Aug.01, 2011

There is so much happening in the world today that we often miss important things as they pass by us in our daily lives. Sometimes these things are tied to feelings that get buried deep inside us and cause us discomfort without us knowing why.

Years go by and then suddenly we see something again, and then we hear a song that brings that feeling to the surface and exposes our need to deal with it. Even at this juncture we can see and feel for a brief moment just what it is we have missed, but if that feeling has something negative and personally upsetting tied to it, then we often will try to push it back inside and not deal with it.

It’s often hard to identify just what takes these feelings and pushes them into our thoughts until we realize we have to take action. Typically it takes a sequence of events to all come together at once and then we know inside that it can’t be denied any longer.

In the early 90’s Big Audio Dynamite recorded a song, Innocent Child

“Live for yourself today and tomorrow, look after your health, forget all your sorrows
I wish I could have seen you, you could run wild, I would have liked to known you as an Innocent Child.

Its never too late, for you to do, you don’t have to wait for the sun to come through, I wish I could have seen you, and you could run wild, I would have liked to known you as an innocent child, innocent child”

When I heard this song awhile back it started digging deep into my past and chipping away at my reluctance to face the feelings that have been denied all these years. A few weeks ago I witnessed a scene that not only brought me to terms with what those denied feelings were, but also gave me a view of my childhood and showed me in real time just what I had missed all those years ago.

I was sitting on my deck in South Beach and looking out across the Georgia Straight to Orcas island, looking at the cloud formations, just relaxing and enjoying the day. The tide was out, so that meant there was a sand bar that went out about 60 yards. The sand bar stretches along the shore for over a mile and is quite popular for people to go walking on and for kids to play, make sand castles, move around their little plastic toys. It was a scene that is played out everyday, and has been that way forever. Yes even back in the 60’s when I was that kid out there doing the exact thing.

It was what happened next that disrupted my day and brought those buried feelings to the surface and made me have to deal with them once again. There was a man and his two little kids on the sandbar busily playing with their beach toys, totally focused with what was right in front of them. A little girl about 7 years old has a little plastic truck and she is pushing it around in her little imaginary world. Her dad is busy watching her little brother who is only 2 or 3 years old.

Flying down the shore from Lily Point comes an adult Bald Eagle about 50 feet above the ground. When the eagle about reaches the little girl playing on the sand bar, it sees a fish in the shallows and starts to circle. The sun is high in the sky and the 7 foot wing span of the eagle casts a large shadow on the ground. The shadow passes in front of the little girl several times before getting her attention. She looks up in awe and stares at the eagle circling above her.

The eagle lands on a big rock about 10 feet past the outer edge of the sandbar facing back towards the little girl. The little girl is transfixed by the eagle and starts walking straight towards it. She gets within 30 feet then 20 feet and amazingly the eagle stays perched on the rock. Typically eagles will fly away once you get within 40-50 yards of them, but this was a little girl, and the eagle was not frightened by her behavior.

The girl kept walking and when she got within 10 feet of the eagle, she started to walk sideways as her own fear and instinct kicked in. She stopped and just stared at the eagle and finally the eagle had seen enough of the little girl and flew off. The little girl stood there for a moment, and then the spell was broken and she turned and ran to her father and said, “did you see that, did you see that?!!”

So now I was left there to deal with the feelings that this little scene had brought to the surface. You see, even though I spent many summers on the same exact sandbar playing and running wild, and like many kids I was fascinated by flight and intrigued by the pictures of raptors I’d see in magazines and books. The image of the eagle is everywhere, on money, on flags, in mythology. I never could understand why I’d never seen an eagle. I read about what their perfect habitat was like, and I looked at Lily Point and thought, this is exactly like the description, but there were no eagles? Why? Because from 1917 to 1952 the state of Alaska paid a bounty for people to shoot eagles.

Okay so how does that relate to a beach in Point Roberts? Well the fishermen who worked in Alaska would spend the winter months down in northern Washington. Because the bounty was paid to those who brought in a pair of eagle talons, the fishermen would shoot the eagles in Washington, throw their talons into a bucket, and then turn them in for money in the spring when they returned to Alaska.

Because Point Roberts was a well known eagle habitat it didn’t take long for eagles to be exterminated from the entire region. So by the time my mother was born in 1924 the eagles were gone, and she never saw them during her childhood and much of her adult life.

It was July 4th, 1978. I was 23 years old and I was standing on the grass just above the beach. We were having a family reunion and it was late morning and the sun was high in the sky. I was looking down at the ground, and something caught my attention. A huge shadow about 10 feet across and a few feet wide was moving towards me and it took me a few seconds to realize that this was something I’d never seen before. Just before the shadow reached me I looked up, and there was an adult bald eagle 20 feet above my head looking right down on me.

I could describe how it made me feel, but I found a passage from Ken Kesey’s book, Demon Box, that just nails it… “Stand in this spotlight, feel these eyes pass over you. You never forget it. You are suddenly changed, lifted, singled out, elevated and alone. Self consciousness and irresolution melt in the beams blast. Grace and power surge in to take their place.”

I can honestly say that nothing has ever caused such a reaction and made me feel what that eagle did on that day. When I saw that little girl have the same experience it brought that day in 1978 flooding back into my mind.

We are fortunate that the eagles have come back. We need to learn how to respect them so this time they will stay in our lives. Seeing an eagle can make your day and so can seeing the gleam in the eyes of an innocent child that gets excited by the experience.

Like an innocent child the eagles need our protection from those who only think of themselves and their needs. Don’t sacrifice the gift. Don’t let your child grow up without experiencing an eagle. It is a regret that will last a lifetime.

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