Snow Geese in the Marsh

 

Between the melting of the last snow and the arrival of today's storm, there was time for one nice day of birdwatching at Edwin Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge on the New Jersey coast.

Snow geese are visiting the marsh now. Click to enlarge.

They were mainly feeding with their heads down in the grass. 

This group suddenly all looked up toward the same direction.

Then they took off. Note the pretty black wing tips.

They made a racket of honks and cackles.  

Picked up speed.

Gained altitude.

Reached the clouds. 

And finally disappeared.  

Winter Robins Holly Feast

 

Remember the flock of robins that was drinking melting snow water on my roof last week? They came back to eat holly berries. Click to enlarge. 

This time there were about 100 robins. Look at them all! The whole tree was packed like this. 

I heard a sound I had never heard before, of hundreds of robin wings brushing against holly leaves. They chirped, darted and flapped. It was a spectacle. 

They ate and flew away, then retuned throughout the day until all the berries were gone. 

A welcome splash of red in this cold gray February. 

Winter Robins Get a Break

 

A flock of about 50 robins visited my place last week. Here are some of them, testifying that robins don't all fly away from our area for the winter and return in spring. Some of them fly further south, and we get the idea they are all gone when they disappear from lawns as the worms and insects become scarce. But most of them stay, switching to a diet of dry fruits and berries. And they may form foraging flocks. This flock was feeding on the berries of a nearby holly tree. Click to enlarge. 

It was that one day last week when, after several straight weeks of below-freezing temperatures, we had a brief mini-thaw. It's hard for wildlife to find water when it is as cold as it has been. The whole flock landed on the roof of my house to drink water from snow melting there. When I went inside to get my camera most of them flew away, but here is the last lingering pair. I bet they are looking forward as I am to the coming carefree unfrozen days of spring. 

Frost on the Windows

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This week, the cold kept me inside long enough to notice and photograph frost on my windows. Behold! 

John Greenleaf Whittier once asked: "What miracle of weird transforming is this wild work of frost and light, this glimpse of glory infinite?"

 

I think I see winter trees beside a path in this one. Click to enlarge. 

 

Thomas Hood wrote: "Frost is the greatest artist in our clime — he paints in nature and describes in rime."

 

From Percy Bysshe Shelly: "I love snow, snow, and all the forms of radiant frost." And Robert Louis Stevenson: “…tree and house, and hill and lake, are frosted like a wedding cake." 

 

Robert Frost wrote the poem Wind and Window Flower — “She a window flower, and he a winter breeze.” I imagine him, like me, examining frosty windows on a cold winter day. Click here for a link to that poem