Snow Day

Until yesterday, winter had been almost snow-free. There had been a light dusting in late November, and another a few weeks ago, but that had been it. I was beginning to feel cheated. I love snow, at least when it isn't an inconvenience and, not to put too fine a point on it, I don't have all that many winters left to me when I might enjoy it. But yesterday, Mother Goose shook out her featherbed in a fervor of spring cleaning and, like many of our March snows, it came down like crazy, piled up briefly, and disappeared almost as quickly. This is snow at its best: beautiful and ephemeral even at its most intense.

Second Fall

This marks the second time I've had snow on the ground this winter. The first was in late November, if memory serves, and it was only about a third as much as what you see here. Kinda pitiful, ain't it? Nor has it been particularly cold, other than a week when nighttime temps were in the low 20s, but I won't complain on that point. Snow, however, is another matter. Many native plants (especially alpine species) require a period of absolute darkness to flourish. When snowpack is low, light can penetrate the cover and affect the plants' natural cycles even though it occurs in minimal amounts. The growing period which follows may see fewer blooms and diminished seed setting and/or viability.

Close Call

Day 120: I'm home safe, but it was a narrow squeak. I firmly believe that NOAA has had an intern on the board for the last couple of weeks because our forecasts have been consistently off by at least 10 degrees (the forecast has been for lower overnight temps), but also for precipitation amounts. Last night, we were supposed to have snow showers with no significant new accumulation. Taking into account the temperature error, I figured it was safe to order groceries for morning pickup. When I got up this morning, it was snowing hard. The temp was predictably 10 degrees above the forecast, and the road was snowy but not icy when I headed out. I wasn't thinking about how treacherous the hill coming up out of Eatonville might be on my way back because I'd seen the sand trucks out doing their job on the way down to Yelm. I decided to come home via Eatonville, and that was almost my undoing. Halfway up the Alder Cutoff, I went into a slide which took me from the guard rail on one side of the road to the embankment on the other. I managed to regain control by not panicking or over-steering, but by the time I was going in a straight line again, my heart rate had shot up to 200. A little bit further on, a truck had gone in the ditch and people were directing traffic around it. As I tried to avoid the guy pointing me into the other lane, I went into a second slide and came within a hair's breadth of sideswiping another vehicle. Y'know, that's 'bout all the excitement I need for February. I don't think I'll go out again until spring thaw.

First Significant Fall

Day 113: Unless you count the three or four flakes which fell one day in November, this is our first snow of the year. In any event, it's the first significant snow we've seen. Temps have been warmer than those of the last few winters, but it has also been substantially drier with only 3.27" of precipitation recorded by my station for January. The temps are about to drop, and while that usually means we get less precipitation, snow showers are in the forecast for every day next week. I like snow when I can watch it at leisure from the warm confines of my home. I'm not so fond of it when it sets up like concrete and I need to go out for groceries, nor am I fond of temperatures which incline me to wear a hat and long johns indoors. On the other hand, Merry is enjoying this. He spent yesterday entranced by the big, floppy flakes falling from above, and in between showers, it was easier to see the little birdies hopping around beneath the window in search of scattered seed. This brings me to a question: Have you spotted the Junco yet?

Bigfoot And Me

Day 96: Bigfoot made several passes through my yard in the night, and because he outweighs me by at least five times and possibly as much as ten times, his imprints went right down to the sod. There's no mistaking this ungulate: Roosevelt elk. The tracks are larger and broader than those made by deer. Although I was fairly certain I'd correctly identified them from a distance, I felt a compelling need to check. The Big Kitty has been reported in the local area in the last week or so, and would have left pug marks of similar size. Needless to say, I was relieved to see the distinct outline of hooves rather than pads, although I'm still skittish about making after-dark forays for my mail.

Following In My Footsteps

Day 91: This made me chuckle. As I walked out to the mailbox yesterday, I noticed that someone had been following in the footsteps I'd left on a previous trip. Five or six of my imprints each bore the same marks: two hops of a Dark-eyed Junco who had been travelling in the same direction. Perhaps the little feathered person tracking me had discovered that where the snow was already compressed meant that landing there kept their tummy drier and warmer. In any event, the hops seemed strategically placed, and deliberately so. Oh, to know how those little minds work, because it is obvious to me that there are thought processes going on, so far removed from those in our narrow, verbal human brains that we cannot comprehend the logic and concepts within them.

Snowbirds

Day 90: The epithet "snowbirds" has always intrigued me. It is used quite differently in different environments. To some, it means the people who fly south to warmer climates as soon as the first flake falls. To others, it means the influx of skiers to the slopes. Since both make equally good sense when applied to humans, I have resolved the quandary with an even more logical definition to eliminate any confusion when I use it in conversation. These are my snowbirds (some of them, anyway), the faithful winter companions who appear regularly at my feeders and knock on my window when the seed supply runs low. Spotted Towhees, Dark-eyed Juncos, soon-to-be-renamed Steller's Jays and Evening Grosbeaks ("Porch Parrots" in my vernacular) are among the most reliable visitors to my yard when snow lies on the ground. Let's hear it for the snowbirds who neither slalom nor suntan!

Significant Snowfall

Day 89: Compared with what they have received on the east coast, this barely seems worth a mention. However, it is a significant snowfall for here, especially since it all came down between 9 PM yesterday and 5 AM today. It took my power with it despite our electric company's heroid efforts to cut back branches. I had just gotten out of bed and was down on the floor playing the morning head-butting game with Tippy when the lights began flickering. They browned out several times and then failed completely. In my house, everything is dependent on electricity. Without it, I have no heat, no water (I'm on a well). I hadn't even brushed my teeth, although that doesn't fully excuse the foul exhalations issuing from my mouth. "At least let me get my first cup of coffee, dammit!" Expecting this, I had made extra, so I heated up a cup on my camp stove, and also warmed Tippy's breakfast. Then we settled in under a blanket to read by candlelight for the next two hours. Our little PUD is astonishingly swift at restoring power, and it's seldom out for longer than that. There's more snow to come, and it will be mixed with rain, making laden branches even more likely to break and fall on power lines, but for now I'm warm and washed, the birdies are fed, and I can just sit here and enjoy the winter wonderland outside my window.

Fool's April

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Grosbeaks In The Snow

Day 162: Given the amount of activity at the feeders yesterday, I should have put more faith in the weather forecast, but they've been wrong more times than they've been right lately, often missing my nighttime low temps by as much as 10 degrees, so I simply didn't believe them when they said snow was a possibiility. It was coming down hard when I got up at 4:45, although only about half an inch had accumulated. By 6:30 when the first birds came to feed, it had piled up two inches deep. In conditions like these, it's interesting to observe the different foraging methods of the various species. The Towhees, the Quail and two Northern Flickers set to excavating, quickly clearing the ground down to the grass. The Juncos chose to forgo small seed, preferring a high-fat breakfast of suet, but the Grosbeaks focused on their favourite black-oil sunflower seed. The Mourning Doves sat moping on the fence, waiting for someone else to do the hard work, and then moved in to clean up the others' scraps. Very little goes to waste around here!

Friends And Relatives

Day 143: "Oh, I kinda thought from your name that you were Native American." If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that, I might not be rich, but I could at least afford a fancier spinning wheel and a dozen bags of good wool. "No, not Native American," I would reply. "I'm just a crow." Usually, the discussion closed there, but if any further curiosity was aroused, I'd say, "And my mother was a frog." My dad was a Luna moth, but no one has ever ventured that far into my genealogy. In fact, my dad was the first person to acknowledge me as a crow. Hoeing up hills for corn in the spring, he'd deposit four kernels in each: one for the worm, one for the crow ("That's yours"), one to die and one to grow. And I always got my allotment at harvest time. My hair was raven-black in those days, long and swept back into two "wings," and my beady eyes were almost as dark, and if that wasn't enough to give a clue, my peers kept me at arm's length or further, as if they found me socially unacceptable. I was curious about everything, and yet wary of new experiences until I had sized them up from all angles. There were other commonalities with Corvus brachyrhynchos as well, enough that I began to identify with the iconic black-feathered friends who seemed to share my personality (but oddly, not with ravens). Eventually, "Crow" became a nickname, and today there is hardly a person who calls me by my given name, or even knows it. No, I'm not Native American. I'm just a crow. And that's the size of it.

Build-Your-Own Mistletoe

Day 55: When I was a kid, you used to be able to buy fresh mistletoe in the dime stores, at grocery checkouts, and other common venues. Yes, it had berries on it, but parents warned their kids that they were poisonous (and we listened!), and pet owners either hung the sprigs where their furry friends couldn't reach or pruned the berries off. If there were mistletoe-related fatalities, they were few and far between, but some official body somewhere decided that mistletoe represented an intolerable safety hazard, and it was removed from sale unless already divested of its fruit. One step led to another, and eventually, it became almost impossible to find fresh mistletoe. Now I'm not saying that I was ever kissed beneath a spray of this parasitic plant, no. In fact, I don't recall that ever happening. Still, mistletoe was as much a part of Christmas as ribbon candy and the manger scene. To the best of my knowledge, the only species of mistletoe native to Washington is a micro-mini version occurring on evergreen trees. Oregon's oaks grow a full-sized version, but driving to Oregon to hunt down an obliging oak seemed a rather excessive response to the problem. Instead, I built my own out of Fimo (a bake-in-the-oven polymer clay similar to Sculpey), and I think it looks a lot better than the weird artificials sold in craft stores these days. Does it work? Ask Tippy!

Snow Faeries

Day 49: The Snow Faeries came calling last night, and with them they brought one of the modern era's most precious commodities: silence. I had almost forgotten what it doesn't sound like, that absence of traffic grumbling on the road, but over the last four hours, no more than four cars have dared the snow; no log trucks, no jeepers, no early-shift commuters and more telling, no plow. The Faeries must have gifted Flatland as well, calling those enormous scraping, growling machines to the lowlands with a sense of greater urgency than that of our small mountain community. Silence! It brings a deep calmness to my spirit, creates space between the snarl of thoughts and cares winding through my head. It has been too long since I heard nothing, far too long, and odd though it may seem, nothing can be as critically important to existence as any or all of the somethings in the world.

Snowjays

Day 46: A light snow fell overnight, and the birds roused early for breakfast. Steller's Jays, Towhees, Juncoes, Chickadees and those brave Anna's Hummingbirds who overwinter here now were all out at first light to check the assorted feeding stations. The suet feeder predictably drew the greatest number of patrons, with even the Juncoes changing their diets to a high-fat regime. Every calorie counts on mornings like this, and I know that if I'm tardy with serving seconds, someone is bound to knock on the window to remind me. Not all my "yard birds" are clever enough to equate the person behind the glass with food, but the Chickadees most certainly know, and so do the hummers. Is there telepathy at work when I can sense a hummingbird staring at the back of my head? Having lived around a number of different non-human species throughout my life, I am convinced it's so. In fact, I think they sometimes wonder why they're not getting through to people, humans having lost the ability to project their thoughts in communication. We've stepped too far away from Nature to use the gift which birds and cats employ.

First Snow

Day 25: Intelligent creatures tend to be curious about the world around them, taking new events and circumstances as learning moments. On the most basic level, this contributes to their survival, but among the brighter bulbs, it can also be an opportunity to experiment. A young crow, seeing snow for the first time, might notice that it was colder than bare ground. However, with birds' countercurrent circulatory pattern rewarming blood from the legs as it returns to the body, this would likely fall into the category of "just how things are" and not be worthy of a second thought. The fact that a beakful of crisp white crystals turns rather quickly to water would be lodged in the brain for future reference in case of thirst. So far, we're talking about things which are almost instinctual, but what about play? What if you discovered that with a toss of your head you could shower one of your companion crows with this strange white stuff before it had a chance to melt in your mouth? Doesn't that sound like fun? On several occasions, I have watched what could only be called "snowball fights" between young crows or raven couples. The parties involved were unmistakably enjoying the experience because neither participant made any attempt to leave the scene despite having plenty of opportunities to do so. In fact, the game usually culminates with one or both of the players getting rolled about before settling back on the fence to dry out. Corvids play games in summer as well, catch-the-stick (baton-passing), aerial acrobatics and so on, but my crowd seem to enjoy winter sports most of all.

Melting Marmots

Day 288: Even the marmots are melting. I took this photo before the hot spell settled in and drove the mercury above 90 degrees, but daytime highs have been there for three days running now, and several more are on the roster. We may break daily records here in western Washington, and I find myself empathizing with the marmots whose cooling snow patches are disappearing fast. That said, the marmots' thick fur coat actually insulates the animal from summer heat as well as protecting it from cold in winter. Still, marmots seem to have figured out that by chilling the insulation down occasionally, they're less likely to succumb to overheating. I rather suspect that there is a bit more physics going on here than is covered in that very basic explanation, but it will have to do for now because I'm too hot, and I don't have a snowbank to flop on.

We Are Not Amused

Day 181: A six-inch accumulation of snow in April is an unusual occurrence even at my mountain abode, and the friends who have flown here from the south expecting spring to welcome them with buds and blossoms are not exactly pleased with current events. I'm keeping their feeders well stocked, and itis obvious to me by the sheer number of birds gathering that the food sources on which they would normally have depended are presently severely limited. At any one time, I may have a hundred or more finches, juncoes, towhees, grosbeaks, sparrows, etc. standing shoulder to shoulder on the ground beneath the seed trays, ready to grab the scattered spillage as quickly as it lands in the snow. There are very few arguments, surprisingly, except for space on the trays where the grosbeaks attempt to repel all boarders and, having greater bulk, are most often successful. They and the Purple Finches are the bright spots of colour on a grey, dreary and expressly unseasonable landscape.

Sunny Beaches

Day 180: Last Monday, I woke up to an inch of snow in my yard. I commented to friends that it was rare to get more than a dusting in April and, true to form, it had melted off by mid-afternoon. This morning, I have four inches, which must surely be a record. That said, only a week has elapsed, and in the middle, we had Thursday when the thermometer peaked at 80 degrees. It's no wonder this little Junco is trying to find a safe space under the eaves! I thought he was pretty clever to take up a position on the roof of the House of Chirp after discovering that he didn't quite fit on the top of the garage door frame. Alternately, he shelters on the clothesline under my back-porch awning, another spot from which he can keep watch on the feeders or dart out for a quick lunch. I share his sentiments. I'm in a heavy sweater and wooly socks, and when I looked out over the winter-scape shortly before dawn, I too remarked on the sunny beach...or something like that, anyway.

April's Prank

Day 174: Shame on you, April! Or as my grandmother used to reproach me as a child, "He who fools when Fool's is past / Is the biggest fool at last." My daffodils have collapsed under your humour, the Porch Parrots are in high dudgeon, and the first few venturesome swallows have apparently had second thoughts about their decision to move north, disapproving of the white carpet rolled out to welcome them. While a flake or two is not uncommon here in April, to have snow stick to the ground is not a frequent occurrence. It came in the night, following an afternoon of "snowy mix" and small hail from battleship-grey skies. By all rights, it should have melted immediately, rather than dragging the plow driver from his bed for a nominal sweep of the roadway. Perhaps he was grateful for one last chance to topple trash bins where they were set out for today's collection, or to take another swipe at those pesky mailboxes some contrary people just *will* put up along the roadside. He earned no points for either here, not this time around, but may have found a better opportunity further up the hill where the snow deepens. And here we thought the time for winter sports was done!

Too-too-too-too-too Snowy Day

Day 132: The internet has gone a bit overboard with palindromic numbers and "special" days like Pi Day (3.14, or better yet, 3.14.15), but I figured I might as well jump on the bandwagon because this morning was "2-22-22" snowy for late February in the Pacific Northwest. A major cold front has dropped down out of the Arctic, so vast that it is affecting the entire northern portion of the US, and extending as far south on this coast as northern California. We're to have possible record lows here, although they missed last night's forecast by ten degrees Fahrenheit. I have no objections to a little snow, but if it really does hit 9 degrees (that's minus 12 Centigrade), it will be a record for the last week of  February at my station, established over thirty years ago in this location. Previous late-February lows have been 11 F. in 2006 and 14 F. in 2018. Thanks, but that's a record I'd prefer not to break!