End of the walk

After I played in nature’s moss garden for a while, I headed further along the stream and deeper up the valley. Baby Dog liked this part of our walk much better. She never did figure out what I found so interesting about that moss. Sniffing every leaf on the ground was more her style. Although she doesn’t look like one, that girl seems to think she is a bloodhound.

When I first started my walk on Sunday, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to walk through the entire valley. Since the ground isn’t frozen, I was afraid it might be muddy and sloppy, as it often is after spring rains, but the mud remained at a level that wasn’t unpleasant for me or for a dog who doesn’t like to get her toes wet, let alone muddy.
The woods are still quiet, winter quiet. Every now and then I’d hear the pileated woodpeckers fussing and arguing in the distance. A red-tailed hawk screamed overhead. The jays were occasionally intrigued by our passing. Those sounds were occasional. Mostly it was quiet, and our footfalls made more noise than I heard throughout the forest.

Baby Dog enjoys this walk, a change from our daily morning routine. It’s too dark and too far to walk this route during the mornings. Soon, too soon on such a beautiful day, we have walked the length of the valley and have reached the point where I must turn back up the mountain and return to the cabin. Our late winter walk has come to an end.

A moss walk

First off, I can report that Baby Dog has no interest in mosses. So she couldn’t figure out why I kept stopping on “her” walk to look at them. I, however, think mosses are very neat things, even more so in winter when they aren’t competing with equally neat flowers and birds and bugs and such.

The first photo is of cushion moss. It’s growing off the edge of a bank and reminds me of a water fall. My moss identification skills are pretty poor, partly because there are a lot of different mosses that are very similar, but mostly because good moss identification guides are tough to come by. And moss species are quite variable even in small areas, unlike birds where a guide to the eastern U.S. covers everything you will see in that region. For a moss guide to be really accurate, you’d probably have to have several for the average state, either that or a really big book.

 

The next photo is of feather moss, I think. This is one of the identifications I’m not sure of. My photo looks close to that, anyway, so that’s what I’m calling it until someone else tells me something different.

The last photo shows the moss spores. Now here’s where I think the mild winter is showing up in the landscape. Moss spores typically arrive in late March or April. Here we are a few days before the end of February and those spores are out there and ready to go. I think this may be the first actual sign of spring and its early arrival that I’ve found.

Spring arrives in the small things first, though I am usually too busy looking for the big things to notice them. I’m looking for birds and wildflowers, but I guess I should be looking more at moss to tell me when spring is arriving.

Back in business!

 Sunday dawned sunny and calm, a blessed relief after the brutal winds of Saturday. Time for a walk through the forest to see what late non-winter, early spring looks like. Baby Dog was my companion, a guinea pig for the new hands-free leash system I’d just gotten. With Baby Dog tied around my waist, I could carry both my hiking stick and my camera.

The weather was seasonably chilly, especially during the pre-noon hours. I noticed only the sun and its increasing warmth, far warmer than the sun of just a month or so ago. I wanted to see if the warm winter had sparked any signs of new spring growth, even though it is still very early. Baby Dog wanted to sniff her way from one end of the mountain to the other. It was a good mix.

Looking across to Nell’s Hill, the vista looks as wintry as ever, considering there is no snow. The trees are still sleeping, and even the buds aren’t yet enlarged. Grasses are brown and flattened. The landscape is largely silent, at least until three pileated woodpeckers got into a shouting match. I never could decide if they were alarming at me or were fighting among themselves. Three crow-sized black-and-white birds screaming through the forest are ear-splitting.

We hadn’t gone very far before six deer tiptoed and then bounced along in front of us. They all looked brown and healthy. These deer had an easy time of it this winter, though they aren’t fat. I suspect that even during a mild winter a diet of dead, brown grass and the few acorns that fell last fall doesn’t have much nutritional value.

At the bottom of the abandoned ski slope, we turned north and reached a pond, as always unfrozen. Water is pumped out of this pond for snowmaking, so the water never freezes. Even without that, the pond would be late freezing as it is both deep and spring-fed. In summer the edge of the pond is dense with cattails and other moisture-loving plants and is a great spot to watch butterflies that are attracted by thistle and the mud along the water’s edge. I look for skunk cabbage, among the earliest and arguably the largest of the new spring growth. I don’t see any.

After the pond, we walk along an old woods road. I notice that I can see deeper into the forest than I’m used to. The lack of underbrush means I can better see the topography of the land, see rock outcroppings that I normally can’t, see a small draw across a creek that bears investigating on some future day.

The stream that flows through the narrow valley is running and pretty full, if not as full as after spring rains. The ground is soft but not muddy. In April the area is often too wet for walking in hiking boots, and even with Wellies or rubber boots, the ground can be so mushy that I can easily sink 3-4 inches. I usually just avoid the area then, waiting for the drier weather that will come after.

Baby Dog isn’t sure about the new leash. She wants to stop and sniff everything, and I want to keep walking. She’s like a kid in a candy store, and I’m not letting her buy any candy. We move deeper into the forest, her lagging behind as always. I reach an area where mosses are thick and lush, a haven of greenery in the brown. I’ll post photos from that part of our walk tomorrow.

Murphy's Law

 While it has always been true that nothing ever goes as planned and Murphy’s Law reigns supreme, I think both must be even more true in this technological age of ours. Things break.

Our ancestors had the same problem, I’m sure, if on a different level. What do you do when a wheel to the horse wagon breaks? Well, if you’re in town it’s probably nothing more than an afternoon’s hassle, but if you’re between towns or out on the frontier somewhere, that accident can suddenly become life-threatening.

Today we have more technology than ever, both appliances and electronics. We have tons of that stuff. When it works, it’s wonderful and time-saving. When it doesn’t, all that time-saving goes down the drain, and we spend time trying to get it fixed or getting a new one. Given the amount of technology we have, sometimes keeping everything in good repair feels like its own full-time job.

Today it’s the USB cord that I use to download photos from my camera to the computer, which means I can take all the photos I want, but I currently have no way to get them out of the camera. I’ve ordered a new cord but until it arrives early next week I won’t be posting any new photos. Sometime this weekend I will likely dig out an old point and shoot camera that I haven’t used in years and see if I can make that work again temporarily.

So in the meantime, I’m posting a few photos of what a winter should really look like, just so we don’t forget.

 

A little greenery

With 60 degree weather in February, I almost expect to see leaves popping out at any second. Apparently, the leaves know better, as I see no evidence of popping. Even the grass is still brown and brittle. So the only green things around are the mosses and lichens, such as this moss-covered tree.

The temperatures are so balmy that I have look up into the night sky, just to make sure the winter constellation Orion the Hunter is still there and not replaced by spring’s Leo the Lion.

In a normal winter, I would be thinking that snow, even a big snow, is still possible in March. A March snow doesn’t usually last very long here, but this year, I don’t see much potential for a March snow. Even though long-range forecasts are notoriously wrong, the temperature forecasts aren’t even close to being able to produce snow. Winter is done. The only real question is how long will it take for spring to arrive?

Not winter, not spring

Every day I watch the sun rise earlier and set later. A minute here, a minute there and soon the difference is a large one. The sky is no longer pitch black when I get home. Before long, the chickens will still be awake (and will need attention) in the evenings.

When I walk Dog in the mornings by the time we are through, I can see the barest hint of orange color in the east. Overhead, the stars are dimming and what was once a velvety black showcase for nature’s diamonds is now a steel blue.

Canada geese call every morning from over on the new pond. They are raucous and I can tell they are chasing each other around, trying to find the best nest sites and chase off interlopers and upstarts. A great horned owl calls from somewhere distant, perhaps over on the next ridge.

Not even the skunk cabbage is breaking through the ground just yet, but the first hint of green can’t be far off. The days are untypically warm for this time of year. The nights sometimes drop below freezing, sometimes well below freezing, but sometimes never make it below that mark at all. It’s that time of the year I should rename the time of many coats. I never know from morning to night which coat will be needed, the light jacket, the raincoat with lining, the heavier jacket I wear in all but the coldest weather. Sometimes I need all three on the same day.

I still can’t smell the spring, though the ground is not frozen. Spring has its own pure smell. I think of it as a smell of new life and fresh earth. The earth is fresh on this late February morning, but I’m starting to think the germinating seeds know enough not to break out of their loamy beds and reach for the sun just yet. Perhaps next week.

Ben with moss garden

Ben the bad cat with moss garden

 Roundtop Mtn. didn’t get any of the snow that fell further south this weekend. In fact, the weather, while not warm, still felt rather balmy as the wind was calm and the sun often appeared.

During the late afternoons, temperatures were in the mid-40’s, and when I was out and about I still saw a lot of people sitting on their porches and enjoying the mild weather. I saw a few in t-shirts, but I think that might have been taking things a bit far. Up on the mountain I ran all my outside chores without a coat, though I don’t think I would have wanted to sit outside without at least a light jacket.

One thing I accomplished this past weekend was to create small moss garden that will sit on my kitchen table. Over the past week or so I started gathering a few things to include in it. And I finally found the small stone with moss on it that I was seeking. The rock is not as thoroughly covered with moss as I would like, but it’s close enough. I found a couple different kinds of moss and a stick with moss on it. I bought the large clump of moss you can see in the far corner, but the other mosses were found on the mountain. The first photo is not the best, but Ben the cat wanted his photo taken with the moss garden, so I was forced to oblige him.

At this point in the so-called winter season, I doubt winter will bother to arrive at all. That said, I haven’t yet found any actual signs of spring in the landscape or in the birds, but that can’t be far away. Cardinals, song sparrows and bluebirds are singing, but those all sing even in a snowy February, so they don’t count.

Nighttime temperatures fall into the mid or upper 20’s, but every day works its way above freezing before noontime. This freeze-thaw pattern, bad enough in a normal winter, is likely going to create some mythic potholes around the area, certainly enough to keep the local road crews busy for much of the spring.

With such a mild winter, I’m wondering and worrying about the upcoming bug season. Fleas, ticks, stink bugs, mosquitos and who knows what else are likely to be in greater numbers as there’s barely been a hard frost and virtually no snow cover or frozen ground. I can’t say I’m looking forward to any of that, though as long as winter isn’t going to bother arriving, I’m starting to wish we might as well get on with spring.

Not quite spring

I’m starting to believe even this non-winter is coming to an end, though other than one fleeing skunk, I’ve yet to see any real or actual signs of spring just yet. Well, other than rain when it should be snowing, but that’s how this whole non-winter has been so that doesn’t count.

What I’m looking for and have yet to find are signs of new spring growth, and that is not yet making an appearance on Roundtop Mtn. This long, long November is still holding on, though who knows for how much longer?

While I’m not seeing obvious signs of spring, it’s starting to feel like spring to me, though I can’t say precisely how or why. Perhaps it’s the longer hours of daylight. Perhaps it’s the soft ground. Grass is still as brown and flat as you could want, and it doesn’t yet smell like spring. And yet there’s something that suggests to me that spring is just about here, perhaps only a mile or so away, or maybe just behind the eastern ridge.

My moss garden is coming along, and I hope to finish it sometime this weekend. I’m still looking for that perfect moss-covered rock as one of its features. I have found some lovely ones that are unfortunately too large for the small arrangement I’m working on. I know where some right-sized mossy rocks are, but I’ve so far avoided going there because I know the area will be a mushy, wet mess. If nothing else turns up, though, I’ll just put on my Wellies and head down there.

Fortunate



Appalachian glow over Nell's Hill, Warrington Township, York County, Pennsylvania



I suspect the long non-winter is about over, presumably to be replaced with an early spring. This morning Dog found a beautiful and large skunk, and no, I don’t have any stinking stories to report. Fortunately.

Skunks aren’t true hibernators, but they do den up for the winter. The fact that this one was out and about tells me he or she is done with all that for this season. We encountered the skunk, only the third one I’ve actually seen on the mountain, around 6 a.m., when I still needed my headlamp. We were walking through ski resort’s dirt parking lot, along the edge of the woods. Dog was on a long lead, ranging a bit ahead and over to one side. The skunk quickly scurried away from us. Dog tried to give chase, but encountered the far end of the long lead before he encountered the skunk. Fortunately for us all.

I guess it was two years ago that Dog met up with a baby skunk and got close enough for a passing spray. He didn’t take a full shot by any means, but he still spent a week sleeping out on the back deck. Tomato juice baths helped, but not enough to have him in the cabin. Fortunately for him the weather was warm enough then that this was no hardship. After a week the weather turned stormy, and I brought him inside again. I could still get a whiff of that that skunk in damp weather for at least another week after that.

But back to today’s skunk. It’s out. It’s about. So even this non-winter must be at an end. Unfortunately.

Pity Poor November

I find I am growing restive during this never-ending November that is trying to fill in for the missing months of winter. Poor November, stuck here for weeks, with no relief in sight, no sign of December, January and February anywhere. Who knows where they’ve gone? The only thing November is sure of is that she can’t leave until some new month, any new month, shows up and lets her off the hook to take a much-needed break.

November is tired of being here. I’m tired of entertaining that same old month. November has been here so long, I should start charging rent. Months should only last 30 days or 31 at the outside. November is closing in on 100 days now with no sign of picking up her bags and leaving.

And it’s not poor November’s fault either. She was ready to go, she wanted to go after her allotted 30 days. It’s just that her co-months, her month-partners, never showed up. They’ve left her hanging, waiting at the bus stop for the entire winter. November is angry about that but can’t even chew out those unfeeling, unthinking months of December, January and February because she can’t find them anywhere.

Sometimes November worries that something really nasty has happened to her co-months. She just doesn’t know what that could be. Other times, she is so angry with those missing months that she almost can pass for December or February. November is ready to strangle them all. She suspects the fault lies with January, somehow. January has always been a tough month, with little regard for the other months. Sometimes January has a lot of influence on December and February, too much influence, November thinks.

At this point, November is hoping that March will arrive and relieve her suffering, but she doesn’t know how to contact March. March probably doesn’t even know that anything strange is going on. And so November waits, still here, still waiting for another month to show up and let her go on a long, and much-needed, vacation.

S. Grantham Rd., Monaghan Township, York County, Pennsylvania.  Snow and pond with goose

I expect it is more likely that I will run out of snow before I run out of snow photos to post. I’ve taken a lot of photos during the little snows that fell this past week. With warming on the way (after a brutally windy and cold weekend), an inch here and another there won’t last very long. The cold I don’t mind, but regular readers know how I feel about wind.

It’s a rare weekend when I don’t take at least a short hike somewhere around the mountain. This weekend was one of those. Between the ice and the wind, I was content not to venture out very much.

So I spent a lot of time inside the cabin, from where I could easily watch the feeder birds. For once this winter, I had a good turnout at my smorgasbord. No unusual species have partaken, but the two starlings trying to hang onto a tube feeder may be a first. Perhaps they were summer birds, taken aback at this unanticipated turn in the weather.

Deer were well hidden this weekend, likely hunkered down someplace protected from the wind. The only evidence of their presence was a double set of tracks walking down the length of the lane in front of the cabin.

Before the snow, I gathered some moss with a plan of making an indoor moss garden to brighten the winter browns. I’m not sure it will work taken this time of year. Normally, late fall, before the weather turns really nasty is a good time for that. The “garden,” is still a work in progress. More progress won’t result until the snow melts and the temperature warms at least a bit. Later this week should be fine. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Snow and blue sky bright

Yesterday brought a pretty little snow to Roundtop Mtn. and the surrounding hills. The snow was the sticky kind that sticks to every tree and twig, turning the entire landscape white.

At the cabin, the snow was close to 3 inches but soon started to compress. Off the mountain, the area had about an inch. That brings the grand total for the winter season just under 6 inches of snow, far less than a normal winter. That doesn’t count “Snowtober” when 10-12 inches fell in the off season.

Normally, this area sees about a yard of snow each winter, with many winters running between 40-50 inches of snow. Most winters with less than average snows are still cold, and those years have tended to be drier ones; it’s not usually a matter or replacing snow with rain. This winter both snow and cold are lacking, and the precipitation has mostly been as rain.

Not yesterday. For a little while at least snow fell and made everything look like winter. This morning, the sky was sapphire blue and perfectly clear. This little snow won’t last very long. The daytime temperatures will melt it quickly. But this morning was gorgeous and teased me with a taste of what a winter should always look like.

Them's snow clouds!

E. Ridge Rd., Monaghan Twp., York County, Pennsylvania

That’s not just any old grey sky in this morning’s photo. Them’s snow clouds! And indeed, snow is starting to fall even as I type. Now the forecast is for only an inch or two, but this winter that is cause for celebration, at least by me.

The temperature is only just cold enough to snow, at 31 degrees this a.m. Even that feels a bit like a victory, since on so many days the days are well above freezing and the nights only cold enough to flirt with that mark. For a day or so, until the next warm-up, the landscape will look like winter again. Even the long range forecasts show little hope of an actual winter making much of an appearance in the near term. And each week that passes makes the prospect of spring more likely than much winter weather.

Even the birds seem unimpressed by the prospect of a little snow. I have found them the best prognosticators of poor weather. When a bad storm is coming, they feed like crazy. It’s like a shark’s feeding frenzy only with feathers. Whatever sensors they use to predict weather, they are always right. Last night and even this morning, they didn’t rush to the feeders, weren’t pecking on the patio door this morning, demanding seed and suet. Still, I made sure the feeders were full. They may change their little minds once the flakes are a little thicker.

New Light

Mt. Zion Rd., Warrington Twp., York County, Pennsylvania

The instant I stepped outside this morning to feed the chickens, I was greeted by the scream of a pileated woodpecker, warning all around of my appearance. A few steps later and I heard the twitters of the Eastern bluebirds, coming from the area of their hollow roost tree. It’s now light enough in the morning for me to see or hear a few birds other than the crows.

The crows are still about, sitting atop a utility pole like a referee, warily eyeing everything around them, just waiting to call “foul!” on something, anything they don’t like, which is really almost everything.

Here it is but a few days past midwinter and the difference from just last week is already noticeable. Winter can stay as long as she likes, as long as I can have the extra daylight of February to play in. Tomorrow might even bring snow. In a normal year a forecasted inch would not be worth mentioning, but this year is not a normal year. It’s the warmest and least wintery winter I can remember in what is now more than half a century (gack! How did that happen!) of remembering winters.

Yesterday morning the nearly full moon was the color of an old gold coin, rich and almost bronze. This morning the moon was a cold, bone white, with not a hint of yesterday’s rich shades. And in the east, the first weak hint of dawn’s color, instead of the black sky of winter’s night.

This morning the sky shows no hint of impending snow, as the morning is as clear and bright as you’d like. I hope the weather forecaster has it right for once.

Where are the waterfowl?

Franklintown gamelands

Flat light and overcast skies in the never-ending November that passes for the 2012 winter does not make for interesting photos.  I decided to go birding instead and didn't find much.  Nor did I find much last weekend, and it got me to thinking about why that might be.

In a normal winter, the ponds and lakes are mostly all frozen over.  Over the years, I've found a few spring-fed ponds that stay usually stay open for at least the majority of the winter.  The Susquehanna River often freezes, too, though a few channels and other spots sometimes don't.  Wintering waterfowl congregates on those spring-fed ponds and open sections of the river.  This year, all the ponds, streams, lakes and rivers are entirely ice-free. 

And guess what?  I couldn't find a duck anywhere.  So what's going on? First off, there's simply no need for waterfowl to congregate this year. They can go wherever they want to and find open water. The normal hot spots aren't the only game in town this year.

That said, I still expected to find a few, other than the ubiquitous resident Canada geese, here and there, a couple on this pond, several on that lake.  I didn't find that.  I didn't find any ducks at all.  Even though the birds aren't forced onto on a few open ponds and spots on the river rivers, I would have guessed they'd still be around, just spread out all over the place instead of in just a few spots. That does not seem to be the case, at least not here in southern Pennsylvania.  They simply don't seem to be in my vicinity.  So where are they?  Did they migrate at all?  Are they all down on the Chesapeake Bay having a big conference?  Are they hanging out in your area?  About all I'm sure of is that they aren't  in northern York County.  So, are the wintering waterfowl in your area?  (And if so, can I come visit??)

No title

I seem to be wordless today, so I'll leave you with a near sunset photo looking over the valley.  Happy weekend to all.

A little color amidst the browns

Shelf fungus

I found this really cool shelf fungus on one of my wanderings this week. I imagine someone else removed it from its host tree and then left it. I suppose it’s possible it fell off on its own, as a couple of nearby trees could have served as a host, though I suspect not. Fungi tend to hold on pretty tight and can damage a living tree. It’s even possible the fungus was deliberately removed it to try and save the host tree from further damage. Or, it might have been on a tree cut for firewood. It’s impossible to say.


I think fungi are always fun to look at. They are easier to see in winter because they aren’t hidden by greenery and summer growth. And in a dull brown winter like this one, something that is bright orange is always a treat. This one was a good 7-8 inches long and 4-5 inches wide. It looked fresh, too. Shelf fungus are common here (and probably elsewhere, too) but this one was larger than most.

The forest is quiet, as quiet, I think, as if the trees were blanketed in snow. I took a walk on a familiar trail during the early morning just to see what I could see. Even the sound of the ubiquitous blue jays was distant. The wind wasn’t stirring, and the forest felt as though it was dozing.

I tried not to make any sound as I walked along the old path. Sometimes, despite my best efforts, my boot found a twig and cracked it. Even that sound didn’t alarm the residents. If they heard me, they gave no sign. The woods might as well have been deserted.

After a while, I went off the path and walked through the woods. I can’t do that in summer when the underbrush and annual plants are growing. So winter is the time when I walk where there is no trail.

After a while, I came across an old stone fence. It means that at one time these woods, where trees are now 120-150 years old, was once a field. Stone fences were created when the original farmers cut down the trees and cleared the land. This area of Pennsylvania is very rocky, and those farmers had to put the rocks somewhere. Usually, they didn’t want to put them very far from the cleared land. That was too much work. So they built stone fences along their property lines or to mark off a field or a pasture.

I know of two nearby ruins that were once foundations of either barn or house. This fence is far enough away from both that I’m guessing it marked the far end of a field. The fence is built on sloping land. It’s hard to imagine this spot was ever good for crops. It’s nearly as hard to picture these forested hills as cleared land.

But cleared they were and now the forest has reclaimed its own, taken back what was once taken away. But for how long? I always wonder how long any of the forests around me will remain. Construction and building, houses and developments move ever closer, grow ever larger, year by year.

We are too greedy, we humans. We always want more and bigger. We grow ever more populous. The next time these forests are taken, they may never be able to take back their own again.  Nothing that humans build is as beautiful as a forest, not even one that is dozing through a snowless winter. 

Where field meets the forest

The winterless winter continues, with no sign of actual winter anywhere in my forecast. It’s as though November moved in and never plans to leave. At least a month like, say, August, hasn’t yet tried the same trick. I’ve long since put my down parka in the closet. Last year I lived in that thing.

I’ll bet some, if not all, of the forest animals are thrilled, if that’s something they can be. I see deer everywhere in the fields in both mornings and evenings. This morning I saw 14 in 2 groups. Last night I saw 7 in another group on the mountain.

Winter is hard on the deer, normally. This year that is certainly not the case. The grazing is still probably not the best, as the grasses are all sleeping through winter. But the deer don’t have to paw through snow and ice to reach it. Some winters deer huddle in their “yards” and can’t or don’t move beyond its confines. In really severe winters they can die in there when they run out of food. This year even the ponds and puddles have open water, at least by around noon or so.
I think an easy winter is likely to make for a strong breeding season for them. Certainly there isn’t any winter-caused hardship.

Other animals and the birds are likely seeing the same kind of benefit. Birds will survive the winter fat and happy, ready for a new breeding season, too. The winter residents will be in good shape to start their trips back north.

This kind of winter may not be my cup of tea, but I’ll bet it’s theirs.

The non-winter here on Roundtop Mountain continues, with only momentary blips of winter to report. Mostly, January was like a very long November. The snow lasted but a few days and has now retreated to a few tiny patches that are hidden from the sun.

The daytime temperatures are well above freezing, and most nights the temperature does get below freezing, if not always by very much or for very long. By morning, ice in puddles is hardly more than skim ice that is long gone by noon time.

The patterns created by the slowly freezing water caught my eye this weekend. They remind me a bit of tree rings, though I suppose freezing rings would be more accurate. You can see how the freezing starts out with just a little ring and then as the night gets colder, the rings get wider and the water is apparently freezing faster. In a normally cold winter, I don’t see freezing rings. The puddles freeze too fast and are pretty much ringless, with a solid sheet of ice. Not this year.

The warm winter has gotten me to thinking about what the spring might be like. Will winter bother to make an appearance in February? If the winter continues as it has so far, will birds return north much earlier than usual? Will the snow goose and tundra swan migration come long before the end of February? This will be an interesting spring to observe, I think. I’m just not quite ready to start looking for it just yet.

Soggy

Winters should not be soggy but today is just that. Soggy and foggy and mushy underfoot. Although it is warm enough to be a spring rain or a spring day, it doesn’t smell like spring. Nor do the woods smell like winter. To my nose, the air doesn’t smell like much of anything at all.

At this point in the season, daylight remains into the evenings quite a bit longer than just a week or so ago. The mornings are lighter earlier, too. This morning I saw crows, the first time I’ve seen any bird in the mornings before work for many weeks. In winter, they are the first bird I usually see in the mornings. Sometimes cardinals come early to my feeders but they are skulkers and wary. Crows are obvious and seem to think they have to inspect their territories first thing in the morning to make sure nothing awful, or even anything at all, happened while they were sleeping.

This small group of them was plying the stone parking lot at Roundtop, no doubt scavenging for lost French fries or other edible goodies dropped by skiers last evening after dark. The crows aren’t picky and will try to eat anything dropped by humans. To them the parking lots are just fast food joints—no work, no waiting—just food appearing on the ground, free for the taking. They want to be sure they get first pick of whatever is available. It’s good to see them again, good to have something to look at so early in the morning. I watch them for a few moments and then leave them to continue their scavenging.

Tempted

One warm day with fog was all it took for the snow to disappear literally overnight. Oh, a few patches of it remained this morning, but with rain in the forecast for tonight, whatever may remain will certainly be gone. The feeder birds have already disappeared, gone back to their natural food supply and ignoring my offerings. I’m sure they will return whenever the next blast of winter reappears.

The warm winter evenings have tempted me outside my cabin on more than one occasion lately. When the wind is calm, walking in the woods at night is a rare pleasure. Two nights ago I could smell the snow, all crisp and cold. I didn’t take a headlamp, as white snow underfoot is just as good or even better. A thin slice of moon curled just above the horizon, a deep orange.

By summer, underbrush impedes such off-trail meanderings, which accounts for the rarity of such an adventure. I try to look at everything, to memorize the sky, the moon. I draw the winter scents deeply into my lungs, somehow hoping they won’t disappear as soon as I’m inside again. I never know how long it might be before another chance to wander at night comes my way. Better to take advantage while I can.

Foggy morning

View from the backyard of dad's farm (west), taken on Saturday

Fog still obscures Roundtop mountain this morning. Trees are just shadows of their clear-day selves. The distance is entirely invisible, lost in the grayish white of snow and fog. Sounds are amplified or distorted, seemingly disembodied from any one place.

It’s as though nothing exists beyond a middle distance. My cabin, the trees that surround it may as well be the only thing in this world that’s closer to a dreamscape than a landscape.

Dog and I penetrate the shadows carefully, slowly, avoiding the ice. Dog is elderly now and more cautious than he used to be. He slips once but recovers. I move haltingly, afraid to slip. The headlamp does me no good. We move slowly, going half the distance, or less, than we usually do. He is glad, I think, when we turn around and head back. I know I am.

The fog is pretty, in the way that things that are different are pretty or at least interesting. After a day or so the novelty wears off, long before the fog does.

Snow! (and ice and fog and ice fog)

Odd, how a few inches of snow has changed my mood, softening my anxious mind. Winter looks like winter for the first time this year. The season is as it should be, for at least the next little while.

Winters should not feel and look like November, or like a winter in Georgia, when I live on a mountain in Pennsylvania. Now that I have snow, winter feels like itself again. I only hope it’s not a momentary aberration.

The dreaded ice storm did not materialize, though this morning produced a bit of freezing drizzle. I even have an ice fog, as you can tell from this morning’s photo. That is an uncommon occurrence here. Fog usually comes with warmer temperatures.

The feeder birds suddenly remember where my feeders are and have arrived hungry and demanding. So far, no unusual or even uncommon species are in evidence, just the usual suspects—titmice, chickadees, nuthatches, a wary blue jay, the odd starling and the like.

In this era of warming trends, it’s comforting to know that winter is not yet dead. Doom and gloom can wait for another day. Or year. Or decade.

Snow! (I hope)

This may turn out to be the last non-snowy photo you see on Roundtop Ruminations for a while. If the forecast holds true, I will see 3-5 inches of snow tonight.  If the forecast is not true, I will end up with ice.  I'm trying to ignore that as a possibility.

I enjoy a fine, snowy winter.  To me that also means birds at my feeders, a warm fire, dogs and cats at my feet, a good book, warm sweaters and a mug of something hot and steaming or compfortably alcoholic, depending on the time of day.  I can do most of those things when there's no snow, but snow completes the picture for me.  A non-snowy winter is simply less fun and a lot less pretty, despite the clouds in this photo.  A pink sunrise is glorious whatever the season. But sunrises soon fade, replaced by lots of brown during the rest of the day.  Snow on the ground is something I can enjoy all day long.

This time of year, 3-5 inches of snow would normally not be something to crow about.  This year it's the best we can manage so far.  Therefore, I will.crow in anticipation.  And continue to ignore the possibility of ice.

Woodland surprise

I must confess that when I first saw what you see in today's photo, I didn't think it was what it turned out to be. 

I'm finding this brown winter difficult, sometimes, to photograph. Landscapes, particularly, aren't satisfying me at all, so I decided to wander across my little patch of forest and look for small things that came my way.  And that's how I found this.

When I first saw it, I thought it was a curled up catepillar.  Readers from this region certain know about wooly bear catepillars that local legends say predicts the weather by the size of their red and black bands.  That legend aside, when you pick up one of those, they curl up into a defensive little fuzzy ball. And when I first found this, I thought it was some catepillar, though obviously not the red and black wooly bear, that was doing the same defensive move.

But then I touched it and turned it over and discovered it was the underside of a piece of fungus or mushroom, species unknown to me. I still can't tell you what kind it is. Only this piece of it was left.  Somehow it hadn't rotted or turned black in the winter.  I just liked how it looked, a little not-caterpillar curled up among the leaves.

Is it real or is it...?

Can you tell by looking that this isn’t natural snow? I hesitate to call it fake snow, which in my mind implies plastic or some other non-snow material. This is manmade snow from the ski resort that blew over to the bottom of my lane during fierce winds yesterday.

During this snow-less and mostly warm-ish winter, the neighboring ski resort has been forced to make snow when they can, which hasn’t been all that often. They make snow by shooting aerated water over the ski slopes when the temperature is below freezing. Voila! Snow results.

I can’t tell you the number of times people have asked me in October when the ski resort was going to make snow. It’s the kind of question for which guest service people like to make up snarky answers that of course are never delivered to the callers. The second question in a similar vein that we often get is “It’s 31 degrees (at my house at 6 a.m.), why aren’t you making snow?” The answer to that one is a tad more complicated, but usually boils down to the fact that the ski resort isn’t at their house, and it doesn’t do the resort much good if the temperature isn’t below freezing throughout the majority of the night (as opposed to just at 6 a.m.). The ski resort is at the mercy of Mother Nature like everyone else.

When you look at this manufactured snow up close, the flakes look a lot like naturally falling snowflakes, but there are some differences. Typically, the natural snowflakes are more complex, with more points and more variety to their shapes. At least most of the time. Even natural snowflakes have several general types that are shaped by temperature, ice and wind. There’s the dendrite snowflake, the plate snowflake, the plate-dendritic snowflake that starts as a plate-shaped and ends as a dendric type. There’s simple prisms, stellar plates, sectored plates, stellar dendrites, and at least a dozen more types of more and less complexity. Manmade snow always has fewer points and less definition but sometimes natural snowflakes are just as lacking in complexity and diversity.

This morning, after I took this photo, I had the natural kind of snow, too. Typical of this winter, it didn’t last long.

Nature's Ice Sculpture (Weird)

Who am I to call Grandmother Nature’s ice sculptures weird? Perhaps I’m just not able to appreciate her handiwork in all its complexity. Interesting? Of course, but the artistry needs a bit of work, in my opinion.

Winter made a brief visit to the mountain this weekend, with temperatures dipping below the ‘teens overnight and that made even worse both by a substantial wind and the rapid drop from above normal temperatures. Our bodies just aren’t made to get used to quick changes in temperatures.

Never fear! Winter wasn’t moving in after all, just checking out the accommodations (and apparently finding them not to her liking) because today the weather is warmer again.

The warm winter is having an adverse effect on my sleeping. Not because I toss and turn. Oh, no. It’s because the raccoons are still around and attempting to forage in my bird feeders at night. Last night Pig the raccoon (or its latest incarnation) attempted the raid five different times. That means Baby Dog’s wild barking woke me up five different times, and both meant I had to go to the door, turn on the light and save the day by shooing Pig off the deck and away from the feeders.

Pig is not the dumbest raccoon on the block as each attempt was slightly different. The first time was the straight on approach across the deck railing. The second was the most inventive, mounting the assault from a nearby tree. Pig was balanced precariously on a branch that was much too small for his girth. That attack never would have worked, even had I not shushed him away. The branch would have broken or Pig would have fallen or simply been forced to retreat.

The next time, the assault came from up the stairs, as though tiptoeing across the deck was the answer. That didn’t work either. The next time was an assault up the railing of my raised deck. Truthfully, I’ve forgotten what happened the last time. By then I was a bit punchy from the constant awakenings.

Tonight? The birds will have to do without their crack-of-dawn feeding tomorrow morning, because that feeder will not be outside overnight.

Dark and stormy

 The morning the sky is dark and angry. Snow blew sideways, like scores of white ribbons waving in the wind. Large white flakes didn’t so much sting as bite. I turned my back to avoid those bites. Dog was soon dusted, like a canine sugar doughnut, though his thick and long fur protected him from the biting snow.

As quickly as it started, the snow was over, leaving only the angry clouds and a momentary covering of snow on the ground. And the wind. And the much colder temperatures. Winter has returned to the mountains.

Last night, before winter arrived, I took a late evening walk in the warm rain, only partially protected from the wet. I don’t mind the rain or the cold that came today, but I don’t do wind very well. I’ve tried to learn to enjoy the experience of it, to take some enjoyment in its fierce wildness, but I’m not doing very well with that. When the wind arrives, my favored response is to retreat to the warmth of the cabin and wait for it to grow calm again.

I have tried to analyze this aversion, in some hope that I can find a way through or around it. To no avail. When I’m in the woods, I use all my senses, sight and smell and hearing. When the wind roars, that is disrupted. Watering eyes limit seeing, and even when I can avoid that, I find the birds and animals I look for are hunkered down, away from the wind and not very interested in being out and about or seen. The only sound I can hear is the wind itself. Bird calls, the stamp of a deer are all covered by the wind.

The wind tears at uncovered skin, reddening it, making it numb. My hands are covered, my face is covered, my eyes hide behind goggles. I may as well be a deep sea diver, so covered and so protected, so distant from the experience am I. And yet even with all that, the wind finds tiny openings, a pinhole perhaps, to force its way past my armor.

Wind reigns supreme and I retreat. The warm, calm cabin awaits.

Foggy morning

Fog has ruled the mornings here on Roundtop the past few mornings. It’s the kind of fog that might make for a good photo at 10 a.m., but certainly not at 7:30 a.m. when I am out and about. So today’s photo is not current. I took it earlier in the week when the fog wasn’t so soupy.

The spate of mild January weather is soon to end with a bit of snow and a lot of wind. It will come as a shock to all, from me to the wintering animals. I miss having a snowy winter and I worry about how this might signal yet more climate change. Still, the balmy temperatures are easier on my heating bill and make the outside chores a lot easier. And that’s all about to come to a screeching halt. I am trying to prepare myself for the sudden change, but winters are much easier to grow accustomed to when the temperature changes little by little.

At least I know the change is coming and can prepare for it in some ways. How much can the deer do? The summer fawns know little of winter’s harshness, and the old does are likely not looking forward to it. The squirrels should be fine. Those fat little rats with bushy tails eat more birdseed than the birds do. The winter birds have largely ignored my feeders for much of the winter so far. Now, they will have to push the squirrels away to get anything. I’m confident the local birds at least know where my feeders are, even if they haven’t partaken of it much.

So, though it’s long overdue, winter appears poised to make an appearance. Whether it will take up residence just for a few days or for the duration is anyone’s guess.

Listening

Yellow Breeches Creek - Bowmansdale, Pennsylvania

Winter is a good time for listening. Last night fog reflected light from the full moon and made the winter woods nearly as bright as dusk. I could see as far into the forest as hills would allow. The air was damp, ahead of more rain (!) tomorrow, but the wind was calm. Standing outside, I listened to the call of a very distant great horned owl somewhere far down in the valley.

Somewhere nearby, I’m certain, other people must have been around. Perhaps an employee of the ski area, locking the lodge door after closing for the night, though I didn’t hear a sound or see a sign of anyone. For all I could sense, I was alone on the mountain, with only the owl or the occasional snap or crunch to break the stillness. The deer, likely were feeding just out of sight.

I have long loved the quiet of a calm winter night. Summer’s nights are never so still or so quiet. The leaves whisper too much, like the town gossip. Perhaps they have much news to spread in the half year of their existence. In winter, covering the ground, they are quiet, unless an unwary deer awakens one with a misstep.

In winter, the silent woods makes my senses seem stronger. I hear only distant sounds, a train whistle, the pounding of the train on the rails, a dog on the other side of the mountain. In warmer months, those all are too faint to compete with the rustle of millions of leaves. But not in winter.

I am surprised, often, by just how quiet the night can be. I don’t hear shouts or calls from people, even those that live within a mile. Surely those would be as loud as a dog’s bark. I don’t hear doors slam either, not car doors or house doors. In fact, I rarely hear the sound of a car at all. Are those quieter than a tree falling or a train whistle?

And so I stand outside, listening not for breaks in the silence so much as to the silence itself. I find the quiet comforting. The quiet tells me all around my little corner of the territory is well. Winter is a good time for listening.

Bad boy!

Sharp-shinned hawk - likely a male

This bad boy was likely the reason I was foiled this weekend in my quest to add a few new sparrow species to my 2012 bird list.  Mr. sharp-shinned hawk was plying the air around my cabin on both Saturday and Sunday.  I was hard-pressed to find even one unwary junco out and about, let alone anything else.

The local crows spent the weekend alarming the forest, screeching at the sharpie and adding to the cacophany that was also augmented by pileated woodpeckers and blue jays alike.  The little birds hid.  The larger birds were outraged and were not above letting everyone know about their outrage. Even the squirrels got into the act, though their constant chattering did not stop them from foraging at my bird feeders.

Life in the forest is not always quiet and serene.  Sometimes it's as noisy as a chain saw.  This was one of those weekends.

Darkened times

Pinchot Lakte, drained

Sometimes I wonder what the point is of looking forward to the weekend. They are over in the blink of an eye. That seems especially true in winter when the days are so short.

One of the reasons I like to rise early, whatever the day, is so that I don’t waste what is already precious little time. I confess that rising before dawn’s light can be more difficult in winter. Climbing out of a warm bed is never easy and is only made worse by darkness. In winter, I try to time it so that by the time I’m dressed, the animals fed and me with coffee in hand, light is already beginning to seep through the darkened woods.

This time of year, the only time I get to see the birds that come to my feeders is on the weekends. It is starting to be light enough in the mornings that it won’t be long before I can enjoy breakfast and the birds at the same time. Maybe even next week if it’s not cloudy in the mornings. At least I hope it will be next week.

Weeks will pass before the evenings are light enough for me to enjoy them. These days, I couldn’t live without my headlamp, and I run through batteries like water. Every now and again I remind myself that if I’d lived 100 years ago, I’d be doing the same things I do today but it would take twice as long to accomplish them since one hand would be carrying a lantern. That’s cold comfort.

The lack of daylight is winter’s cruelest twist, I feel. Cold weather has never bothered me. I prefer the cold to the heat. It’s the short days that rub, that make time slip away even faster than it usually does.

Not looking very much like winter

January has only just started, but I’m already wondering how much winter I’m going to see this year. So far the season is not impressive. Open water? Got that. No snow cover? Got that. One day of winter temperatures sandwiched between 50 degree weather? Got that.

Even looking out a full week, nothing is on the horizon or further west that signals an approaching storm or spate of winter-normal temperatures. It’s mid-November all over again. Even the winter birding feeding has slowed, as though the feeder birds are still finding natural food.

Winter could still arrive with a vengeance, but even if it does, winter is unlikely to last much past late March. So instead of winter weather beginning by Thanksgiving and lasting until late March, a span of some 16 weeks, a winter that begins in mid-January is one that will last only about 9-10 weeks. And even that assumes actual winter weather will begin by the middle of next week. It seems as though the weird weather of 2011 is stretching over into 2012, too. I just hope 2012 doesn’t bring another tornado, earthquake, the hurricanes or another 6ft. of rain to Roundtop Mtn.

Hooded merganser (male)

After the horse roundup I wrote about in yesterday’s post, I proceeded on to the Susquehanna River to do my planned new year’s birding. Overall, I had a successful, if not an outstanding day. I ended up with 33 species of birds, well short of the 40 I believe is possible in York County in early January. High winds kept the count of little birds less than I’d hoped; high water kept me from reaching one area where I’d planned to bird heavily, and a variety of duck species were also nowhere to be found.



2nd year Bald Eagle



That said, the day was certainly not without some great sightings (if not great photos). My first not great photo today is of a male hooded merganser. Many people think the male wood duck is the prettiest North American duck, but the male hooded merganser can’t be far behind. These little diving ducks are pretty shy, too, so I was glad to get any photo at all, especially since I was shooting from inside the car and from across a road. After a few shots I tried to get closer, and all that accomplished was that the duck slipped out of sight and hid in the underbrush.



My second photo today is of a young bald eagle, likely a second year bird. It was high and soaring in less than optimal light, so the markings are not as distinct as I’d like. Bald eagles can virtually be counted as common these days, a fact I still find amazing. Back in the bad old days after DDT, bald eagles were rare in the east. Seeing one was a cause for a major celebration. Now, in migration I’ve had days when I’ve seen more than 20 in a single day. And on this trip I saw 2, both younger birds.



So my 2012 York County bird list is started, if not yet firing on all cylinders. Next, I need to concentrate on finding some of those missing ducks and sparrows!