Around Crownsville

I am sitting hear watching the world go by– the “world” being snow and the “go by” being sideways.  The view out the window is foreboding and mesmerizing.  I always marvel at how many shades of gray nature can find.

The maple tree has already set its buds for spring.  Now they just have to hold on through these forty mile per hour blizzard winds. The solid sheet of ice that was the river developed a fissure with the tide.  At first, a dark gray stream seemed to flow between the islands of white ice.  The wind soon widened the stream. I felt as though I were watching Pangea break up into the continents. Now I can see a lake surrounded by a snow-covered ice shoreline.

Along the real shoreline, the mallards have gathered for a little crack corn.  They don’t stand.  They sit in the snow facing into the wind.  Yesterday they were joined by a little female green-winged teal.  This morning they were joined by a male canvas back.  One canvas back usually mean 200 to 300 more. I’ll just have to wait and see.

I prepared for this weather.  I went to the bank, the gas station, the feed store, and the grocery store. Even with four wheel drive though, I am staying in to enjoy the fury of the storm and let those who must work do so without my vehicle as an obstacle.  As night fell, the wind still howled and the snow swirled.

With morning came sunlight and a new landscape.  Drifts and ice floes obscured bushes and trees and made previously open water look like a series of lakes and streams surrounding ice islands.  The animals adapted.  Squirrels and songbirds easily found the seed I had scattered even though the back porch had not been a previous feeding ground.

Canadas and tundra swans comingled along the new shorelines created by the ice. The little green winged teal was right at home with her new mallard friends enjoying more cracked corn.  The gourmets of the morning were the seagulls.

One gull out on the ice caught my eye.  He was obviously eating something with great gusto.  I went for the binoculars.  I squinted and focused — a crab.  He was eating a crab, a really big crab.  How the heck did he get a crab.  I began watching other gulls.  Most of the others were clamming.  One came up with a fist sized clam that he repeatedly dropped on the ice in an attempt to break it open.  Eventually he triumphed.  Another lost his clam over the edge of the ice shore back into the water.    I watched as still others were on the hunt.  They would fly up about two feet over the water and dive.  Eventually with sufficient repetition, one would emerge with a clam.  The lucky diner would fly up to about twenty-five or thirty feet and then let go of the clam.

Finally, I had the answer to one of my little mysteries.  How does a gull drop a clam and get down to the broken bits before his buddies?    I was assuming the gull would watch the clam down fall then fly down.  I don’t know why.  Seeing the gull in action made it seem so obviously.  He let go of the clam and then immediately began his descent keeping up with the falling clam.  He or she arrived at the ice the same time as the clam.  I was able to verify my observations since using the ice as the anvil surface required multiple drops.  It’s strange to realize a seagull is smarter than I in some things.  The crows, those clever scavengers, found leavings among the clam ruins.

The geese and swans had left for the day,  but now that the shadows are lengthening, they are returning. Standing on the ice, which just two hours ago was too thin to support the weight of a single goose, they are now bunched together, aimed into the wind with their beaks tucked under their wings.  The tundra swans are approaching the false shore making a few last tip-ups in the water before hauling out to nestle down.    Buffleheads are still bobbling in the water in their now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t feeding dace.

Life is not perfect, but it’s pretty darned close.  I will not complain about cabin fever.  At least I have a cabin.