January Thaw

West Marsh, late last Friday afternoon

The arctic grip that settled in on Christmas Eve loosened last week. We had one 48-hour bump above freezing during the first three weeks of January, but otherwise, we had legitimate and sustained winter. Highs were routinely in the teens or even single digits and lows had to drop below freezing a half-dozen times or more. Furnaces and boilers were working overtime. We never got big snows, but we had constant snow cover (3-8") and reliable "walking ice" (6-10" thick). Man, was it nice.

Common Goldeneye
enjoying the newly
thawed estuary

That said it was pretty inhospitable at the marsh. Snow drifts made access difficult without four-wheel drive, and at times wind chills were downright dangerous. Even Roy only ventured out every few days to check on the essentials.

As anticipated, we have concentrated on a lot of the "inside priorities" that I alluded to in my last post . . . now over a month ago, somehow. We have made good headway on a variety of fronts. But amazingly, until last Friday, it had been since before Christmas that I had set foot on the property. That's way too long.

Trail cameras displayed little activity other than solitary coyotes, rabbits, squirrels, cardinals, and a stray cat. Literally no deer on camera since the first of the year except for a couple does and a couple yearlings by the bunkhouse -- one time. The only other thing of note on camera was the -16 degrees Fahernheit recorded a couple times in early to mid January. That's real cold, and activity was down.

All that changed last week. Snow was replaced by rain (my nemesis during winter months); winds shifted southwest and brought temperatures into the fifties. A couple consecutive nights stayed well above freezing and the combination of all these factors not only put an end to ice fishing on Lake Erie, but even to reliable ice on the inland waters that the kids and I enjoyed several times together.

But I have to admit, the sunshine felt good on my face on Friday. I found myself breathing deeply, trying to suck in as much of that spring-like air as possible. My long underwear was too much. My plans to close out the day in the tree stand (archery closes this week) were altered by both the lack of activity on the trail cameras and the near constant flow of geese overhead (also still open through this coming weekend). I audibled from my bow to a shot gun, a camera, and a walk down the dike.

Here are a few of my favorites from the more than 250 that Roy and I took Friday afternoon:

Several hundred geese were basking in the glory of mid-winter sunshine in the millet on the West Marsh

Somehow, these northern honkers are so much more majestic than the golf course variety we see for so much of the year

Ducks were also taking advantage of the heat wave; these loafing birds are mostly mallards, but there is diversity
among them, if they give you time to look -- I saw blacks, wigeon, gadwall, shovelers, and even pintails

Bird identification when they are bunched like this always reminds me of Where's Waldo

Cool to see these mallards crashing into last year's millet; note how they are concentrating on a band of
vegetation within the millet (cattail? softstem bulrush? nut sedge?)

Don't know why, this scene just jumped out as a favorite

We may be thawing, but winter isn't over yet; it will take a while for this bay ice to disappear --
particularly with sustained cold back in this week's forecast