Well, we’ve had our January thaw. Or rather we had a thawed January!!! We only had 10 days that weren’t 40 degrees or above and only 5 days actually below freezing and most of those were only barely below! We had 5 days of temps in the 50’s and one day where it got above 60 Degrees! What little ice there was on the Pond and Lagoon disappeared with the warm rain we had on a couple of those warm days. Ice melts faster from underneath when warm water flows in after a rain.
But now it is February and we had snow overnight from January into February. It wasn’t much and it was light and fluffy. But it was enough to make things pretty down at Horn Pond. The night of the 30th it was finally cold and since the water hadn’t really warmed up at all a thin skin of ice had formed in patches on the Lagoon. So when it snowed on the 31st into the 1st it made interesting white patterns on the dark water! It makes a pretty photo! And of course white snow and the Red Bridge always looks pretty, especially when a horseback rider crosses it!
It may still be winter, but the bird population at Horn Pond is booming! Along with our resident pair of Mute Swans we had a migratory flock go through the end of January. The Great Blue Heron is still hanging around. He doesn’t seem to mind the cold. Of course we have plenty of Canada Geese and Mallard Ducks. Some other waterfowl at the pond are Hooded Mergansers, a shy species of ducks, and someone spotted some Common Mergansers a few weeks ago. The little black birds with the white beaks that bob around in the water are American Coots. They are not ducks at all. If you have ever seen them out of water you would see they do not have webbed feet like a duck, but greenish legs and toes, more like a Crane, which they are more closely related to. And the variety of our small feathered friends is amazing! Downey Woodpeckers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Northern Flickers and White-breasted Nuthatches love climbing up and down trees looking for insects. If you feed the birds in your backyard and put out suet you might see these beautiful and distinctive birds! The bright red Cardinal seems to still be in abundance. When I went for a walk the morning of February 1st, there was a tree with three males and one female all perched together. There are still plenty of Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Gray Slate Juncos, Blue Jays and Mourning Doves hanging around. And a few weeks ago there was a flock of a couple of dozen Robins scratching around in the dry leaves just past the Red Bridge. Speaking of flocks, one of the most abundant (and pesky variety) of birds is the Sparrow. They flock in bushes by the hundreds and make a racket. But they are not just one species. We have many different types of Sparrows including the House Sparrow, the Song Sparrow, and the White-throated Sparrow. We also have at least one Juvenile Red-tail Hawk that hangs around Ice House Park and up through Hudson Grove.
A Barred Owl was spotted in the pine grove over in the Sandpit and I finally saw the little Ovenbird that many of my photographer friends have been posting about on Facebook. This little bird doesn’t usually stick around up north for the winter but between the mild winter and a person that insists on feeding the wild birds out around the Pond (as if it were their back yard), this little guy has stuck around and has almost succumbed to the cold and what little snow we have had. If we get a big storm before winter’s end, he will surely not survive. Even if you only feed the birds in your back yard, you should never start until after the fall migration so as not to entice birds to stay around that should be migrating south. And while I was over in the Pine Grove in the Sandpit, I noticed someone had decorated a small tree with little red hearts for the upcoming holiday!
The full Snow Moon is February 10th and the full Worm Moon is March 12th. Clear skies and snow on the ground during a full moon is a beautiful site.