December 31: Tracks

As we grabbed shovels to clear the path to the office this morning, we noticed a distinct line of big bird tracks in the snow that had drifted across the front patio. A crow had clearly walked in the freshly sifted snow right past our front door. Around the corner under my feeders, more tracks, smaller, of songbirds hopping in the snow after seeds.

All morning, no birds
but tracks in the snow,
runes cast for the new year.

December 30: Blowing snow

Serious wind out there blowing snow into broad drifts, wide white waves of snow flying from open fields to swirl across the road like a living thing caught in the glare of our headlights.

Snow animated by wind.
I don't believe
in ghosts, but...

December 29: Misty mountaintop fadeaway

The title of this post sounds a bit like a cross between something from The Hobbit and a Dead song, but the moment was real enough. My husband and I decided we needed to get lunch and treats at Morse's Sauerkraut before the snow storm hits tonight. Driving there, we passed austere snow-covered fields and trees laden with snow under a bleak, blank sky. As we headed home, the first flakes began to fall. As we drove into Camden, cresting a hill that offers a view toward the Mount Megunticook ridge line, we noticed how snowfall along the top of the mountain made it seem to simply fade away into the white sky.

Mountaintop fades into white
snowfall. In dreams
it's like that when I die.

December 28: Clearing

After yesterday's snow storm, shoveling the office walkways this morning with my co-workers...

Scrape of shovel,
faint crackle of ice
sprinkled with salt.

December 27: Riders on the storm

A nor'easter sent snow and freezing rain gusting around my office today. I live too close to work for the weather to be an excuse not to show up, and we didn't lose power, so I put in a full day there. I was, however, pleasantly distracted for much of that time by the birds flocking my tiny window feeders. The regulars--chickadees and titmice--showed up, of course, and what I think is a solitary White-breasted Nuthatch. And then some finches I hadn't seen in a while made an unexpected appearance: goldfinches, their yellow throats looking positively sunny against the snow, Pine Siskins, and at least three redpolls--a boreal visitor I've only had at my feeders a couple times before. The finches chattered away as they chowed down; I could hear them through the window despite the roar of the wind.

Redpolls peck seed from snow.
I catch myself thinking
of raspberries.

Redpoll visitor from last year (window too splattered with snow to get a photograph today!)

December 26: Ice

Last night driving back from a movie, I was trying to determine if any ice had formed yet on Chickawaukie Lake. What I thought was a thin, opaque layer of ice, however, turned out to be the reflection of clouds on the water.

This afternoon looking out at the river, I saw two parallel lines running downstream, perhaps the twin wakes of a pair of ducks. Instead, they were the leading edges of ice forming outward from the opposing banks, soon to meet in the middle--a rare instance when parallel lines do intersect.

Soon growing ice
will meet in river's middle.
No more ducks.

December 25: Gifts for the cat

Like a large percentage of American pet owners, we get our pet a Christmas gift. Lucky Rooney received a squeaking catnip mouse today. She seemed to enjoy her new toy, flinging it around and batting it under furniture while making funny chirpy noises that a cat might make when it's tormenting its prey.

Later, Paul set up a remote control car I'd given him, a cool one that you operate via Bluetooth with your iPhone. The cat was fascinated by this, as well, though she couldn't decide whether to chase it or run from it. She'd tentatively bat it, then back off.

When combined with the pleasures of tissue, ribbon, and packaging from gifts, these diversions seemed to tire her out. We were still opening gifts when she escaped to the back of the couch for a nap, seeming to take literally the message on the nearby pillow.

Shortly after this shot, she was curled up asleep.

Simple pleasures:
watching the cat play
with a twist tie.

December 24: Pilgrimage to the Star

Since my husband has been slaving away on a novel in all his free time for the past six months, we haven't gotten outside much together. Which is kind of ironic, because his novels are about a Maine game warden who spends a lot of time outdoors. Book written now and both of us having the day off today, we decided to make the most of it and go on a hike together. Our house looks up at Mount Battie, part of Camden Hills State Park (although the slope that faces us is actually conserved by Coastal Mountains Land Trust), so we decided to walk from home up the mountain and make a pilgrimage to the star on top (pictured below--it looks much lovelier when lit at night). We hiked up the Carriage Trail to the tower, and then slid down the icy ledges of the Summit Trail to get back down. The trails were busy, as lots of other folks had the same idea for enjoying the day--festive for its blue sky and sparkling views of the harbor and bay, if not for any snow cover. Happy Christmas Eve!

Mount Battie star not visible
from our house,
but waxing moon rises.

December 23: Rainbows

When I was a kid, a shop in downtown Camden sold little cut-glass prisms in different shapes--snowflake, teardrop, crescent moon, star--and whenever I got my allowance I'd head there to buy a new one. I tacked them up in a row, hanging them off fishline in my bedroom window so they'd catch sunlight and scatter little rainbows across my wall. This was back in the 70s, when rainbows were cool (along with Smurfs and the Bee Gees). I had rainbow stickers and window decals, but preferred the "real" rainbows made by my sun-catching prisms.

I'd forgotten the pleasure I would get from those spinning bits of rainbow until I unwittingly replicated the experience. A friend recently sent me a giant "diamond" of cut glass, which I've kept on my desk as a pretty paperweight. While reading on the couch this sunny day, I was surprised to see little patches on rainbow dancing on the wall. After figuring out that they weren't related to anything on the Christmas tree, I realized that winter sunlight coming through the bare branches in the backyard was being "caught" by my diamond paperweight and strewn across the house in rainbows.

Winter sunlight
fractured by cut glass:
living rainbows.

December 22: Grosbeaks to start

Our local Christmas Bird Count--the Thomaston-Rockland Count--is held on the last Saturday before Christmas, so today was the day! My husband and I have been the coordinators of our section of the count circle for something like ten years now, and every year we feel a similar excited anticipation of what we'll turn up this time around.

We knew today was going to go well when we pulled in a little late to the initial meeting spot, and our fellow birders had already spotted a flock of Pine Grosbeaks feeding in a nearby crabapple. Pine Grosbeak is an irruptive species; it prefers the northern boreal forest but occasionally pops down to New England during winters when the fruit and spruce cone crops up north are poor. I'm not sure we've ever even had Pine Grosbeaks in our count section, so it seemed a good omen to see them at the beginning of our long day of counting every bird we find in our section.

We ended the day with a possible section-high total of 51 species, including lots of ducks (for the first time we can remember, all water was ice-free), more grosbeaks, Purple Sandpipers on the breakwater, Razorbills in outer Rockland Harbor, and a flicker (which should have migrated south by now). We even spotted a Gray Seal checking us out as we walked on the breakwater.

Female grosbeaks
appear dull
only from a distance.

December 21: End of the world

According to some misreadings of an ancient Mayan calendar, the world was supposed to end today. In our neck of the woods, instead of ending, it just got really windy and a bunch of trees got blown to pieces. The icy gusts scattered limbs and even some lawn furniture across the streets. The damage was particularly noticeable on my parents' dead-end, pine-lined street as we drove to their house to celebrate our family Christmas together; we had to move some rather large pine boughs out of the driveway to arrive unscathed for the festivities.

Door blown open by wind--
a dramatic welcome
for a holiday dinner.