One Cold Day

The weather report for the beginning of the week looks less than ideal for photography. Today was supposed to be sunny, but cold. The overnight low of 19F was sure to bring ice to the impoundments. So I made my plans to wake up before dawn, dash to the refuge for a little photography, and then dash back home to change and head to church.

I should know better than trust a weather forecast. When I arrived at Great Meadows at sunrise, they had gotten the cold part right, very right; but rather than clear skies there was a lot of broken cloud cover.


Parts of the lower impoundment were frozen, with wind blown patterns


Elsewhere it was a mix of ice and open water



It was so cold, you wanted to get out of the shade into the sunny portion of the refuge. Of course that means shooting back into the sun. So here are a few silhouettes.






Suddenly the light started to get better as the sun started to peak out from the clouds which were starting to break up. With an interesting sky, I found a place to catch that reflecting back in the impoundment. Do you like the portrait (first) or landscape (second) better?






Near the outflow of the lower impoundment, there was a group of Canada Geese and American Coots hugging the lee side of the reeds. Intermixed among them, were some Ring-necked Ducks.








Though I have lots of Canada Geese photos, you have to shoot something to make the finger numbing, bone chilling walk in the cold worth while. Several groups departed quite close to where I was standing, so I got some nice tight shots of geese in flight.




The Canadian Snowbirds don't fly patterns this tight


Watching geese preen can be entertaining. But with such cold temperatures, I wasn't going to stick around for a lot of these type photos.






In spite of blasting the heater on the way home and a hot shower, I only started to feel warm towards the end of the sermon. I remember some cold days last winter, but none quite this painful.

Refuge As Art Museum

Thursday morning I got up to join Alan and Will on the weekly bird census. I did bring my camera, but my focus was improving seeing and identifying birds. The weather was gray and cold, with rain due imminently.

As we walked along the impoundment, one thing I noticed was the remains of bird nests along the trail. I had walked next to several of these many times and never noticed the nest. I guess my skills of observation have room for improvement. I'll have to make a mental note to check these locations next year.







The predominate color in the refuge is brown. That's why anything green stands out. It's amazing that the muskrats can find green stalks below the water.





Over the course of this year, I've noticed small piles of rocks, popping up around the refuge. I wondered about the story behind why they were there & who was creating them. Since it was such a mystery, I hadn't taken photos of them before. Here are some examples that I noticed on our walk today.










Well this week Tom Hart, the artist / curator of these exhibits shared the story behind these works of art and how he started making small these piles of rocks in the Great Meadows google group.

As we walked around the refuge, I also notice a few art installations created by Nature, herself. Hope you enjoy them also.


I love the way the leaf, is positioned in relation to the curves of the grain in the wood


The combination of fungi and the burl forms a natural face

We Are Not The First

Unfortunately, the temperature Wednesday morning was warmer than predicted and the skies were mostly cloudy, trending towards totally cloudy. That was not a good omen as I met Ken Proulx in the parking lot. Ken is another talented photographer, that periodically visits Great Meadows.

After yesterday's eagle visit we were hoping for continued freezing overnight pushing the birds closer to our cameras on shore. Unfortunately, the reduced light made photography more challenging. I played around with using my flash with as many failures as successes.

It was a cool, gray, quiet, almost boring morning. While walking along the upper impoundment near the poison ivy bench we saw coots running out of the reeds, collecting into a tight group. When they exhibit this sort of behavior, you start looking for the threat. Soon we spotted it. The eagle was content to make a fly-by pass, deciding that there was too much water and hunting coots would be too much work. Almost as quickly as they came together, they started attacking each other, and ran away to disburse.









A group of coots has many collective nouns, including a "codgery", "commotion", "fleet", "shoal", and "swarm" of coots. When we first saw them, this was definitely a commotion.

It was fun photographing with Ken. He has great eyes.   I hear most birds long before I see them. While wandering around he spotted this Brown Creeper. They are tiny, camouflaged to look like the trees. They are similar to the nuthatch, except for the fact that nuthatches general walk down the tree trunk, brown creepers climb up!



Sorry Alan, he was just poking beneath the bark, no signs of a nest.

There was a small flock of Goldeneye ducks in the upper impoundment. Thankfully one got within camera range and parallel to shore to show their distinguishing characteristic.




I always think of woodpeckers on trees, so I find is humorous when you encounter them on the cat tail reeds. The Downy Woodpecker was just doing was woodpecker do, looking for bugs.


An unusual viewpoint of the Downy Woodpecker


A more typical pose


After finishing our photography of animals I decided to go check out the stone foundation that's back in the woods. It is a reminder that long before we started coming here, other people had tamed the area, erected buildings, which have long since disappeared except for some tell tale signs like a foundation, some bricks, and a bit of mortar.