The Cradle

Lesser Scaup in front of McDonald's last winter

This is never the best time of year for me. The short days and gloom and all..... it has been somewhat better than usual this fall, what with chasing birds every day, but it is still a season I endure rather than enjoy.

And don't get me started on Christmas.

There is however, one phenomenon that only happens in the winter that I have been anticipating daily.

The powers that be empty our river about this time of year, turning it from a massive anaconda that eats at its banks as if they were a herd of feral pigs, to a thin ribbon of silver, slipping between gravel bars and shallow mud pools. (Wish it was like that year round.)

This brings the most amazing birds you could imagine to our tiny inland town. It concentrates them wherever that is a little open water. The area downtown by McDonald's, where Becky is a manager, Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site, where we go most every day, and Yankee Hill Lock, where we go except in summer, turn into legit hot spots. Loaded with birds....sometimes quite rare ones. Some days we count geese in the thousands, hundreds and hundreds of ducks, and more gulls than you would conceive.

Winter water levels transform the barren banks and pools in front of our farm into a nighttime safe space for Canada Geese and Mallards. I listen for their thin voices through the clamor of the Thruway and the rumble of the trains, both morning and night when I go out with doggies or just go out in the dark. It is usually dark, after all.....

This morning they were there...rocking in the river cradle and chattering quietly in the late of the night and the early of the morning. I was glad.

Common Merganser at Schoharie Crossing SHS