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.....