Day 18.350: Eagles

Exile #2, Exile #4 and I decided to use the last hour of daylight to have a quick (cold) walk at the cemetery. 

Here are some pictures of that:

The snow made everything so pretty

The snow was easier than the icy patches on the plowed roads

The crew 

Frozen river and marsh

We saw some animal tracks but didn’t see much in the way of wildlife - except that is seven bald eagles:

This immature eagle was picking at this carcass (a duck or goose perhaps?)

We saw at least two different adults and two immature eagles flying around and the Exile #2 noticed that two more were perched nearby. My count would have been six, but Exile #4 was confident of seven. 

The first eagle leaving after finishing its meal

Day 18.035: Glazed

The messy storm has put a shiny coat of ice on top of the snow-pack. The next storm will probably bring another layer of snow and likely another layer of ice on top. In the meantime, here’s some ice in more interesting formation today just outside our front door.

Day 18.020: Lively at the cemetery

There were quite a lot of birds in evidence at the cemetery this morning. We saw nuthatches, chickadees, robins. crows and ducks in numbers. It was also quite cold and so we found ourselves being quite lively in terms of the speed of our walking just to keep from freezing. It was also - again - a little cold for much photography, but here are a handful of times I made the attempt.

Our commonly-seen pileated woodpecker eyed us suspiciously from his hole before sneaking out and making his way noisily up his tree to start the day

One of several passing ducks - flying up-river

A robin apparently keeping an eye on us from very high in a tree

Day 16.332: Frosted rim

Not a margarita glass, but our bird feeder. The water may be warm enough not to freeze, but the air is another matter.

Day 16.034: Scarborough Marsh

We had a nice walk at Scarborough Marsh on Saturday. The weather seemed quite spring-like as we left home, but it was surprisingly cold out on the marsh exposed to the wind blowing over the largely frozen landscape.

We made it to the far side of the marsh, where the sheltered trail under the trees, still covered with ice and snow seemed unappealing enough to turn us around.

These trees caught our eye - one due to the perfectly round hole that something had made, and the other for its pleasing shape.

These twiggy shrubs also seemed noteworthy - quite a striking color and shape.

It wasn't a blockbuster birdwatching day, but what we saw will wait for a separate post.

Day 16.027: Cold birds

We had a very steady stream of visitors to our bird feeders on Saturday morning during the worst of the cold - including these two different varieties of nuthatch:

Many of the birds looked fluffed up for maximum insulation - like these rather rotund-looking crow and hairy woodpecker:

As the temperature increased in the afternoon, the birds reverted to their more normal visiting schedule.

Day 16.025: Too cold for some

As billed, it got extremely cold overnight and stayed so through the morning - it had been so cold that when we saw it was above 0 °F (-18 °C) we commented on how much it had warmed up.

The cold was too much for one of our pipes - the one that supplies water to the downstairs toilet cistern. We used a hairdryer, then a hairdryer and a hot water bottle.

Eventually we left just the hot water bottle in place and got on with the day. I was just deciding that we needed to confirm that the issue was a frozen pipe when we discovered that the cistern was full again. Fortunately, this kind of cold is a pretty rare occurrence.

Day 16.024: Some (un)settling may occur

As I mentioned, it’s getting really cold. Current state:

-11 feels like -27 (-24 feels like -33 if you “prefer” Celsius).  It’s going to get colder but hopefully we’ll stay in and stay warm. 

The house has started making very loud cracking sounds as it attempts to shrink in the frigid temperatures - we’ve seen other locals complaining of the same issue so the house will probably survive. The last time it made noises like this was before and after we had several feet of snow shoveled off the roof. Winter is hard on Maine houses. 

Day 16.023: Thaw no more

At time of writing, on Thursday evening, the temperature is a few degrees below freezing. From now until Saturday morning it’s not due to increase again hour-by-hour at any point. By then, the temperature will be about -15 °F (-26 °C) with a wind-chill adjusted value of about -40 °F (-40 °C) at which point it will be warming again. It will next reach 32 °F (0 °C) around Sunday lunchtime.

“Stay warm!” had become the greeting of choice again - we’ll do our best. 

Day 16.022: Photographing nothing (much)

Exile #2 and I ventured out into a rather cold early evening to see if we could catch a glimpse of the green comet. There was a nice clear sky (hence the cold) so it was the best chance we've had in recent days.

We knew approximately where to look, but the binoculars were not sufficient to find it. I pointed my camera at roughly the right bit of apparently empty sky  and succeeded in photographing some not-visible-to-the-naked-eye stars, but I guess I didn't get quite the right bit of sky to catch what we were looking for.

Day 15.354: Cracking ice and cracking ice

The main attraction of our loop in Ferry Beach State Park yesterday was the ice - in some places there was enough trapped air etc. to see how deep it was:

In the swamp there were amazing swirly patterns (stress perhaps from the various trees and boardwalk supports?):

This one also showed how high the water level had been when this ice formed:

The thing we noticed the most were the loud cracks as the ice shifted. We thought it was heavy equipment at first. I didn't catch the loudest sounds, but this video will give a little flavor (at around 7 seconds - sound on!):

Day 15.352: What we saw at Fuller Farm

Where we parked we could only see the back of this new structure - we were surprised to find what it contained - not the information we were anticipating. A lost-and-found perhaps, or - as Exile #2 suggested - an emergency hat, "Break glass in case of cold head!"

Some very glass-like ice:

The waterfall was frozen, this was the way the ice was forming at the top:

...part way down:

...and at the bottom:

It was hard to get a good angle of the falls as a whole - this was the best I did:

In terms of birds, all we had seen were two blue jays that flew past us until we were nearly back to the car. Then I saw a robin and a few unidentified birds. They turned out to be cedar waxwings and bluebirds. The photo also revealed why this particular bush was a popular location for them.