C-O-L-D

A glance at the resident Great Blue Heron here tells the early February story: c-o-l-d.
Long Island's coldest nights just passed, with temps in single digits; something we don't get down on the coast very often. Odds are that will be the worst of the season inasmuch as we just passed the middle of winter, on the calendar anyway.
The weatherman calls for above average daytime temps for the next several days, starting with an out of line 50-plus by Sunday, then dropping back to 40s.

Just before the cold snap I stepped onto the deck and heard a familiar cackling in the night sky. Looking up, a dozen or so snow geese circled a few hundred feet overhead, working north in a haphazard, rotating kettle. They could be migrating, or just working across their winter grounds. The guide books say they start north in February, but Feb 2 seemed just too strictly by the clock.

Out in the yard, the winter players are pretty much unchanged except for their appetites. Niger loads go down in inches each day and the jostling to get at seed on the ground can be fierce. Both the deep cold and advancing nesting season are driving them. I noticed today that the opening on a sparrow tree house we have is being made larger; keeping watch to see if it isn't the red-bellied woodpecker deciding on its 2009 abode.

Ice covers most of the pond, but both the heron and attendant black-backed gulls know there is still food to be had. I watched a big gull; (almost a 5-foot wingspan) take a 6-inch fish from an open water area this week. The heron can be spotted standing on an ice edge glaring at one of two small areas of water in evidence this week.