Why blue?

A recent comment asked why the ice in the previous post is blue. We have always figured it was because it picks up minerals as it flows through the ground on its way down the hill. This road cut is along the highway at the front of our property and the water that flows out of it comes from under a maple woods where a fellow we know taps our maple trees for maple syrup (and gives us a couple of gallons each year for the privilege.) Above that woods is a good alfalfa field on fertile slate ground, some of the best we have. The low quality of forages in NY in the past couple of ridiculously rainy years attests to just how many nutrients are leached by excess water. Why wouldn't that make the ice look different?

Just to be sure we were correct in our assumption, I did some research on blue ice. (Did you know that there is software with that name, and rappers as well. I sorted through a mountain of dreck before I came up with anything remotely useful.) I found lovely pictures of ice. Then I found this, which really doesn't seem to explain our ice, since there are sections that are just as thick adjacent to the blue ice that are plain white. And this, which shows black ice. Here are more links about ice color. I guess you can take your pick of theories.

I am still inclined to think ours comes from minerals, as the blue occurs right next to plenty of plain old white and some that is just sort of dirt-colored, probably from dirt. Anyhow....

Thanks, Laurie, for an interesting question.

The Ice Man Commeth

The ice man
He ran his head off, or so it looks

See, I got a picture of him, running his little head off to stay ahead of spring (I'm pretty sure he can safely slow down if he wants to). Actually this odd little formation, about the size of your hand, was just there in the ice one morning when it was a little warmer than today. I had the camera so....

The ice woman commeth too. I borrowed Alan's huntin' hat last night for the trek to the barn. For the first time that I can remember my really, really warm work hat was just not up to the weather. 

Some fractured ice from a warmer day. None of this going on now

Our luge run

We have seen many seasons that were much colder than this one. Back when I worked on a big dairy farm up in Johnstown, we saw minus 40-degree spells several winters in a row. At one time I was driving a little VW with no heater during one of those periods. Had a catalytic space heater that we set on the seat and pointed at the windshield so I could drive. Never missed a milking no matter what the weather, even if I had to drive to work with two tires on the snowbank and two in the road because of the ice. I am not sure if I was dedicated or just dumb.....

Anyhow, as icy as the walk to the barn is these days...it gets just warm enough at midday to melt a slick onto the existing ice....it beats the heck out of those days. And a conventional tie stall barn is one heck of a lot warmer than that big old free stall was too.

Did I ever tell you about the time I went to work there all alone at about 4:30 in the morning and found a guy out in the free stalls in the dark, leaning over a sleepy cow talking to her? An escapee from a local youth jail, who came from the big city and had never seen a cow before.......my life has never been dull.

Il Pleut

Never thought I would miss this snow, but it is now a sheet of ice

Yeah, it is spitting and drizzling out, melting at least some of the ice, for which we are all most grateful. You can now pick your way to the barn on the patches of sand left over from encasement in the ever-growing ice sheet, and now melted out to be reused.

The polar explorers could have saved themselves a lot of money and measured the ice caps in our barnyard this year. Then when their boat got stuck they could have just called a tow truck. As long as he chained up good, he could probably have just towed them right on out, with no need for all that international distress.

Like Sunday. Liz 'n' Jade and the boss and Becky worked so I could have my morning off. I am treasuring each and every one, as it probably won't be long before Liz can't come down at all, and I feel guilty leaving just two people to do the chores. sometimes those couple of hours on Sunday are the only time I am alone all week...it is peaceful and I get a lot of work done.

Anyhow, they couldn't get up the Luge run...er house driveway....at all, so they came up the barn one. We are having some woods logged off and the skidder had chewed that up so they could. Jade came over to get Becky to drive her to the barn and his truck just began to slide away down the luge....

He managed to get it stopped but with the water flowing over the ice from the ongoing melt he couldn't move. Could barely walk over to the lawn where he could get some traction between the ice floes.

Smart boy, he went over and got one pair of the skid steer chains, chained up his rear tires, and drove right out. What a mess though. I really hope we lose most of the ice before we get any more.

During the hard cold Becky and I filled water balloons with colored water and left them out to freeze, then peeled off the balloons in the morning. The things you find on Facebook.......

Good Morning from the Ice Cave

Or hockey rink if you prefer. We are having crystal days with temps in the twenties or thirties and shining nights near zero. Nice sugar weather and the days are really pretty.

However, the result is that in the day time no matter how much sand is spread, all the drives and walkways are like shining sheets of glass. And all the sand is sucked under by the melting, presenting a fresh ice world each morning.....

I can remember being a kid and skating on such stuff. Loving it. Flying. Crashing down on it and not caring, and getting up and doing it again. We skated EVERYWHERE when we were kids. If there was a six-inch patch of ice we were all over it.

I mean we had wild hockey matches on the thin little threads of ice between the hummocks of grass and corn stubble in the field next to our parents' house. If you came to a grass tuft you just jumped it. I don't remember it hurting except the time I froze my toes ...just a little, but enough to hurt for days and days.....skating up at Caroga Lake. Having too much fun to notice until it was too late.

Where did that marvelous sense of balance go? Now I can't WALK to the barn on the ice...let alone skate (and the toes I froze back in the day are not happy little campers in this weather either.)

Yesterday I got as far as the back of the stock trailer and just waited. I couldn't even hold one foot still on the stuff....I was afraid I would slide right off the hill.

The wait was fruitful as it happens, as the boss grabbed the skid steer as soon as he got to the barn and scooped up some sand and did the drive between house and barn.

Still made for a slow walk, but at least I could walk. Beck was not so lucky. She was feeding her dog and took a terrible header. Being a farm kid she went to her off-farm job anyhow, but she is black and blue. Nasty stuff ice.

However, when I took feed to the peacocks yesterday, a mix of cat and dog food, corn and sunflower seeds with a nice chopped apple for topping, I waited for a few minutes over by the outside door. The hen began to give those guttural little clucks they have, then very, very cautiously hopped off the roost and began to eat the corn.

I was delighted.

Wild Winds

Sunrise over the St. John's River

We had 'em. And they were awful. When a house this big moves in the wind, you know it's a danged stiff breeze. No one slept too well, night before last.

The house was cold all day too as the stove didn't want to burn. One of those hang on and get it over with days.

Now we have come to dealing with a frozen milkhouse. We have an electric heater in there, but it is not efficient and is very expensive to run. So far this season the boss has instead shut off most of the water lines. Then each night he shuts all the water off in all the barns and then uses an air compressor to blow all the water from the cow barn over to the heifer barn and drains it there.

This has worked pretty good. We also fill the wash vats and several buckets with water and keep water in a big tub for the cows. However, this morning there was an ice shell in both vats, ice in the milkers, ice here, ice there, ice, ice everywhere. Guess we will have to turn the heater on today.

Ack.

And if we can't keep the pipeline thawed so we can milk, we may have to dry the girls off until they calve back and haul water for them to drink from the house. Have to see how it goes.

Jax Beach almost to ourselves

Anyhow.....

It sure makes Florida look good. We are slowly picking away at the mystery birds....yesterday's duck was a Gadwall, a lifer for me.

Didn't visit, what with no time and driving a Camaro and all, but it was a thrill just to drive past

Frozen Feathers

Just before the cold wave hit (or the balmy summer break to my friends in western states and Canada) we had a little ice storm. Here in the valley the ice wasn't stupendous, but it sure made a mess. What a job the boss has had keeping up the driveway!

Anyhow, when the Mourning Doves came in to the feeder that morning I noticed one that had a badly damaged tail. It had down feathers all clumped up and pulled out and stuck to it, and its big tail feathers were half pulled out and an awful mess.

At first I blamed the Cooper's Hawk that landed on Liz's car hood the other day...while she was sitting in it...Tufted Titmouse in its talons and hunger in its eyes. (I haven't seen her yet, but I know she's around. Every now and then all the birds either flee or freeze, hoping to escape her attentions. I don't blame them.)

Then I realized that several of the doves had similar damage, although none of them quite as severe, and all of them had ice all over their tails.

They must have frozen to the branches as they roosted and the ice formed. They seemed fine though and the same number has come in for the cracked corn every day since, but I wonder how many birds and other creatures were less fortunate.

It's just below zero this morning, a veritable heat wave for many of my friends, but I am going to add an extra cup of corn and sunflower seeds to the feeder this morning, as soon as it is light enough for me to see the ice, and stay inside when I can.

Stay warm, dear friends, stay warm. 

Birdy Weather Watching

This time of year it is hard to get away from the topic of weather. We have had it all in the past four or five days, snow, sleet, freezing rain, fog and warm sunny days that feel like April (I vote for more of those). This morning it is foggy with the ground covered with a cast iron coating of yesterday's ice. I will be glad when the walk to and from the barn is done, as it is a real challenge to get over there and back.

Weird things have been going on with my garden pond. I ran a stock tank heater on it during the worst of the cold (it is, after all, a stock tank.) The other day there was a huge opening in the ice, right down to the bottom with no water showing. I figured that the ice had cracked it and let the water out and I was going to be missing a lot of fish and plants. Then yesterday's rain filled it right back up again. I simply don't understand what is going on out there, but I sure hope the fish and green frogs that are spending the winter there are all right. I filled and cleaned the twenty gallon fish tank in the living room anyhow, just in case I see some fish, and can bring them in.

The birds make being outside enjoyable just the same. Last night, as the almost full moon ascended behind the old horse pasture, a couple of dozen ducks swirled in front of it before pitching down toward the river. As I turned to walk away one last one raced across it, a speeding black silhouette on its cold white face. All I need was a camera and fast reflexes. Didn't have either though.

Chickadees are singing their spring call, DEE, dee, dee, and taking no prisoners at the feeders. Normally they wait their turn, what with being the tiniest of the visitors, but now they charge in to grab seeds as if they were overnight blue jays on a tear. They blow through the gold finches like a hot breeze and the bushes ring with them. I think the tame pair is still around as a couple of them fly right up to me, bitching and begging if the feeders are bare.

Cardinals are in ready-for-spring mode as well, whistling from all over. We have quite a flock this year and they make a lot of music. Even the starlings sound like water over stones as they chortle from the eaves of the heifer barn.

One of the colder days when updrafts were few, a resident red-tailed hawk landed about two feet above the ground in a bush just outside the living room windows. The hunting is probably good out there in the overgrown pasture and he stayed quite a time, while we admired his massive, feathery self. Then he soared off looking as big as an eagle against the brown and white of snow and dried golden rod.

Even though it is easy to find beauty in this ice-bound season I am eager for spring. Everything is just too cold and hard right now. Snow is six feet deep in all the farm roads, with ice a couple of inches thick on top of it. Nothing we own will move it or negotiate it, so you can't get anything done without a huge hassle. The men are piling manure, can't get out to the woodlot, can't safely navigate the driveways even with four wheel drive, working is just plain lousy on an all day, every day basis.
Please send me a warm day, mud and all, if you have one to spare; I am half past ready.....

Ice Cream Truck Wars

Yeah, that whole idiotic debacle happened right near here, in the town where I was born and grew up. Nothing like a dubious claim to fame. (Warning, this is not all that funny. Letterman needs new writers). 

It is pretty embarrassing that my hometown ended up on Letterman and got their own top ten list because of a turf war among ice cream truck drivers.

*****Yeah, and when our kids were little the ice cream guy who visited our corner...we lived down in the village and commuted here then...was a real nice guy too. Seriously, check that link out if you think small town life is all pastoral and kindly.

When I think of how many times I handed the kids the change in my pocket so they could run up to the corner and buy a Fred Flintstone push-up.

Anyhow, frozen confections aside, when I went out to fill the bird feeders in the fragile frost of dawn, the little rooster the kids brought home from Matt and Lisa's last night was crowing up in the horse barn.

There is something right about a rooster crowing up the morning on the edges of your hearing when you live on a farm.....even if there is something not quite right about your ice cream truck drivers.

Break up and the Farm Show

Beautiful downtown Syracuse, home of more red lights
than certain districts in the old days. That is a green one you see there,
but we didn't see many others.

We visited the NYS Farm Show yesterday. The show itself was very nice. I will try not to complain too long about the parking guys filling the farthest out lots first...2 miles away. About the insane shuttle bus driver. Standing up with camera, jackets, etc. in hand on a school bus with a death wish.
Pot holes.
Corners on two wheels. Praying not to land in the lap of the poor little Mennonite kid in the seat I was clinging to.
Walking all the way back after doing the show, because the buses were all parked. (I think it was a plot.)


No, I won't whine about that stuff any more than I have to. We talked to lots of very nice salesmen, who who were very generous with samples of a number of probiotic products that I can't wait to try. When a cow digests her feed via rumination it is really a lot of little bugs, microbes if you will, doing the job. When conditions get out of balance in her rumen, due to feed issues, or calving or who knows what, those bugs sometimes die, making it tough for the cow to process her lunch. Probiotic products put a new set of bugs on board so she can break down her groceries. We already use a couple of such products, but it will be interesting to try these new ones. We have a lot of calving coming up and so will have a lot of fresh cows needing extra attention.





I took a couple of through-the-windshield, slashing rain, howling wind and dark and gloomy conditions type photos on the trip. Below is the ice on the river beginning to break up. Experts are predicting a serious flooding situation when it finally warms up enough to move that ice and I suspect they are right.

We are driving on about three feet of compressed ice on our barn road. It has been such a cold winter that almost none of it has melted and our big concrete walkway that is about a foot above the driveway hasn't been seen in months. When all that is on the river and all the snow and all the many places where the ground is covered in that much ice all melt, I expect it to be pretty noticeable.



Despite being footsore from the hiking, the show was fun. Glad we went. Even more glad to be home.

Interval

Owl feather? Caught in a rosebush

The insanity I wrote about yesterday seems to have become the norm around here. I accept that this is how it is with farming and family today. However, some days stress piles upon stress until I don't know which way to turn.

The heifers' summer hangout. Other animals are using it now

Thus when Alan called me from the woods where he was rabbit hunting to report that he had seen a large flock of bluebirds and what he thought might have been a pair of red-headed woodpeckers I donned my boots and joined him.

There be something banging on these trees

The ice was bad in spots but most places we could walk in crusty snow that was fairly navigable. Out in the open the wind would bite hands right into submission. It was hard to hold the camera. However, down in the sheltered bits the sun was pleasingly warm.

Wandering coyote was here

We did find the bluebirds, although the large mixed feeding flock he experienced had moved along. You could hear birds chirping and calling out in the hedgerows of the far fields, but I wasn't up to chasing them all over the farm. There was enough treacherous ice hidden under a thin skim of snow to make waking slow and in spots pretty dangerous.

Off toward the Dacks

It was fun. It was liberating. It was much needed. You would be amazed at the dramas unfolding all the time back there, while we go about our business all unknowing down by the buildings. Foxes and coyotes search the rose bushes trying to roust out bunnies. Owls hurtle through the same bushes hunting the same bunnies, and mice, and voles and such. A busy shrew plies his way along the surface of the frozen creek and vanishes under a steep bank. There are tracks everywhere. We could read the story of the wilding night in all the many footprints.

Pileated detected

 We came back off the hill and tried to help get the stables cleaned, but the big stable cleaner chain broke about six times before we gave up...the boss is forking out the gutter and wheeling the manure outdoors from behind about half the cows. Not much fun.

Mark of the wild hunters

We figured out that the chain is at least 28 years old and it is just worn out. If the barn is cleaned really often and there is no ice, it will work, albeit grudgingly. When there is ice, as there has been so many times this winter already, it breaks. And breaks. And breaks.

Blurry bluebird

So hooray for bluebirds, blue skies, and shining vistas of woods and wild lands. They do a body good.

Winter to the South, Robin to the North

Seems as if a lot of this winter's worst weather has hit folks well to the south of us. This weekend's nasty blizzard is no exception. I feel real bad for the people getting nailed, (but I have no desire to have them send our weather back). I think that the storms are actually targeting AlGore, and a lot of innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire.

On the happy side of things, I was trudging to work the other morning, looking down so as not to land on my fanny on the ubiquitous ice, ice and more ice, when what to my wondering ears did appear but the musical chirp of an out of season robin.

I looked up quickly, despite the ice, and there he was in the old elm above the cow stable, red as a fiery sunset, and launching every now and then into about the first three notes of his summer :cheer-up-cheerily song.

It is not all that unusual to see robins up here in the north even in the depths of the cold. A few winter over across the river from us every year and we can generally drive over to Route 5 to see them tearing up the staghorn sumac if we want to. It was sure nice to see this guy right here at the farm though....

Meanwhile, if you are in the path of the big storm, stay in, stay warm....and keep it there.....

****Update, check out the comments! Our Florida friends say the snowbirds are heading back north...no, not the folks in Bermudas and Hawaiian shirts, the robins and blackbirds. Can't wait until the get here!

Sounds

Took a midnight...well, actually 2:30 AM....... barn check run the other night. 

Well, actually, it was more of a barn check hobble, as the ice has been horrific ever since it warmed up after the last snowstorm.

First I heard what seemed like a loud banging noise. Paused and listened....it was just the electric fencer clicking. It was so very loud in the midnight stillness.

Checked on Foolish, who is due to calve and gave her a bit more bedding.

Headed back. An odd, deep gurgling and clinking sound came to my sleepy ears. I stopped a while to find its source. 

Aha, under the rigid shell of ice, which would probably hold up a truck with ease, water was moving in the little creek that divides the two farms, jingling and jangling against the bottom of the ice. During the noisy day you couldn't possible hear it, but in the silence of the middle of the night it was as clear...and almost as lovely....as a bell.

Then last night, after the rainy storm and the weird warm weather I took the same walk. The little creek was filling its banks and rushing and rustling like a small but urgent river. Can you hear me NOW?

And now the ice is worse than ever and I am thankful that other people are making the trek and milking the cows this morning.

Ice on the river

The river is high for winter and racing with ice floes. The only place I can get a photo is from the gas station in town, but you can get half an idea of how fast it is flowing. Usually this spot would be seething with gulls, crows, ducks and geese. Now there is only speeding water and blocks of ice

Snowy Owls

Hairy woodpecker. He is sure a shy son of a gun, but noisy

Nope, not here, but a neighbor from a couple of miles to the south brought down a photo taken on their farm and their neighbors have been seeing them too. Guess if we can get up some gumption we'll have to take a run up that way and see if we see one. I've seen several in my lifetime, but not in quite a while.

Meanwhile, the song sparrows are back. A nice, natty red one showed up yesterday. I have only seen one or two since the first snowfall, but we usually have quite a few.

Saw a pair of ravens too. I was just mentioning that I hadn't counted any yet this year, and a pair came right through the yard.

Speaking of gumption....where can I buy some? These night barn checks and working with only Becky all the time is wearing us old fogies out. She does all she can, but she is just one person. I could barely drag myself to the barn at 4 AM for calf check. Seemed like a mile, all uphill. Of course we were in the barn until after nine last night so it makes for a short time indoors.

Thankfully after Bailey has her calf we get a few weeks respite before the next ones start coming.

 I am ready for some warmer weather and the cows are too. Can't get them outside with all the ice. Even with all this snow it is so cold that it doesn't stick to the ice underneath, so you are walking in a foot of thick fluff with glare ice underneath. We do okay, but for hoofs it's not so good. 

Fire and Ice

Burning leftover board ends

Cutting Ice

Ice Saw

Amish Prius

In the Middle

We are in the middle of winter now....lurching forward toward spring, one day, sliding backward on a tide of ice and storms another.

Poised on the brink of the brightest change of the year, the segue from ice and snow to Ice Follies Daffodils and Snow Drops.

I have been noticing.....

Outdoors in the late afternoon, almost evening, to try to photograph the crazy yellow sky as the sun went down.

Lo and behold the sun was setting halfway north on the cow barn roof!

By high summer it will set clear north of the heifer barn, which is now the kids' chicken and pony palace, but at least it is no longer sinking more south than west behind the 60-acre lot hill.

Just now a White-throated Sparrow sang its whole song. Over the past few weeks with the arbor feeder that Jade got me right in front of the kitchen window, I have come to know their richly whistled notes...so deep for a bird....quite well. However, their songs have been truncated, one short whistle here, another tiny tweet there.

This morning, right under the window in the not quite dawn, "Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody," rang out loud and strong and then was repeated. 

No migrants yet, and the snow is ever-deepening, but the birds know.....it will not be many days I think before we see the first Red-winged Blackbirds, Grackles, and Robins...although the latter stay all winter on the other side of the river and we might see them any time....

And soon it will be maple sugaring time.

Tracking the not-a-bunny

We received a truly sunny day yesterday. It felt like a spring sunny day too, not one of those anemic, sun-through-high-clouds with wind-flinging-grainy-snow-in-front-of-it sunny days, (which are about as warming as the light from the refrigerator), but a real icicle stretcher.




It called to me. It has been nearly impossible to walk outdoors around here for at least six weeks. Ice storm after ice storm has conspired to lock the ground down against the intrusion of questing feet. We went where we had to and stayed inside otherwise.

But yesterday, lovely yesterday, the ice was soft, the snow crust would still hold you up and there was a buttering of soft, squashy snow to keep you from slipping. It teased me away from indoor chores for a walk up to the heifer pasture. There were tracks lacing everywhere, melted like wax under a candle, but still clear for the reading. Last night's bunny tracks, edges higher than the track itself from the sun's intense gaze. Skunk or possum tracks noodling down the fence line in search of something only he recognized. Crow tracks, fresh as newly embroidered stitchery, all over the pasture. (Wonder what they were looking for.) The spots of bare ground called the sparrow tribe away from the feeders too...I didn't see a junco all day and only one white-throat.

Next came the tracks of the elusive not-a-bunny. He walked out from the old brown three-bay shed, crossed the page wire fence into the horse yard, then into the horse pasture proper, back to the yard and then off across the heifer pasture. He was clearly on a quest for something, from the looks of his last night tracks, but I have no idea what it might have been. Maybe mice and voles, as I suspect that the not-a-bunny was a midnight red fox.

Then larger tracks of the old, but still impatient, border collie who accompanied me began to blur the text of the last night's travelogue. Reluctantly I returned to my work. Today and tomorrow it is back to the two-storms-a-week pattern that has plagued us for at least a month, but I am still warm around the edges from yesterday's sun. I tried to photograph the pattern of the tracks, but with the blinding light on the snow, all my pictures were pathetic. A squeaking, peeping patch of chickadees obligingly posed to make up the deficiency.

Oxygen

Blue Ice

The wind hoots like a Great Horned Owl, hoooo......hooooo....hoooooooo.....howling through the Honey Locust tree just before the break of day. It's cold out here, the ice like glass between the places where the boss has sanded. I am grateful for that I can tell you. Wouldn't be walking without it...and driving down the driveway....oh, my, such peril, without the benefit of grit and rock salt.

Not much fun in darkness with dogs...hurry up boys, fingers getting brittle here...

The Mulberry trees that feed the Mulberry Express in summer must feel the same way, as they rattle and clack in the heavy draft a'blowing. 

One of them is creaking ominously. Finn, let's take care of this business somewhere else, eh?

Still dead dark at 6 AM, not even a glow in the East, the dregs of Orion fading in the West. He can fade into spring anytime he wants to!

A domestic Greylag goose that used to hang out with the Canada Geese
Down by the river. I miss her!

Birding's been barren lately, of anything of much interest. A Hairy Woodpecker on the suet feeder, for a FOY, that's first of year, and a strange little goose down on the river, and that's about it, except for Bald Eagles and Red-tailed Hawks. We see plenty of them.

The goose was DD, diagnosed domestic, by the experts. I knew the head wasn't right for a Snow Goose, but what an odd little bird to find with the Mallards on the ice down there. Funny how you find a few domestic geese and hybrids hanging out with the wild ones. I've seen two of the domestic Greylag sort, and now this one, said to be a Swan Goose.

Anyhow, props to Becky for finding a cold medicine that works. We have tried about everything and even some home remedies, (and a hearty thank you to those who sent the recipe!) which helped for a while, but didn't last long enough.

This stuff....oh, my, I had just about forgotten how it felt to breathe. Oxygen, it is terribly underrated these days! I like it!

A picture Becky took of me when I wasn't looking
Or at least not in her direction

Breaking Up

 

No, not us. We're in it for the long haul.

But the river is another story. It was frozen a long time this winter compared to other recent, warmer, years. It rarely freezes solid in front of McDonald's down in town, allowing for great opportunities to observe Bald Eagles, multiple species of gulls including some nice rarities, and lots of ducks and geese. 

This year though, for weeks there hasn't been so much as an open pool to entertain a stray or two.

However, over the past three warmish days the ice first darkened in streaks and puddles, then the streaks ran together, and by yesterday afternoon the whole expanse was greenish, bluish, darkish, and wettish.

Will breakup today? I wouldn't be surprised. Or maybe tomorrow or the next day. But soon, very soon.

Here's hoping the resulting jumble doesn't bring ice jams and flooding. 

Meanwhile, as the waterfowl congregate at Lock 12, where there are several nice reaches of open water, so do the Bald Eagles. If you want to see some hunting and herding of waterfowl flocks numbering in the hundreds...and if your vehicle can handle mud and ice....the little lock road on the north side of the river leading west offers a great vantage point. For the county birders among us Redhead ducks are pretty reliable also.