First Day - 2009

 First Day and five degrees. A typical brutal January morning. Strangely enough it was enjoyable. Of course that means being dressed for it and I was. The wind from Montreal howled but I was ready. The new snow was untouched by people but the coyotes had already been out and busy. It is a sight to find that a veritable coyote highway wends its way throughout the marsh. It isn’t till the snow reveals the tracks that you realize how active they really are.

Just by Rosie’s Pond, I found this locust seed pod impaled in the snow acting like a sun dial.

A RedTail Hawk soared over the south flats with an occasional gull floating past. I saw a few pigeons and a very cold looking Mockingbird. The marsh was very quiet from the Overlook which obligingly let me take this portrait.

Over to the Boardwalk, I found a piece of automatic writing. It wasn’t a Victorian parlor trick but rather the wind acting on a bent grass stalk.

The Boardwalk was quiet but the panne was full of curves and half circles. The strong winds, snow and freezing ice created a beautiful pattern to be enjoyed.

Next came a swoosh. Again wind and snow working together created an elegant tracing.  Overhead a pair of RedTails called to each other as they quartered the park looking for food. The wind was unbroken by trees and actually moved me about as I stood on the mound watching the scenery.

Finally in the Revere creek bed, I  found these two large ice blisters in the main course of the stream. Everything was frozen but the tidal flood pushed up through the relatively thin ice and burst through.

I was grateful to be out today in the bright sunshine and stark cold. The weather challenges you on such a day. It is worth the effort to bundle up and watch what there is to watch. I am partly a creature of the Internet but this morning I was an Inuit looking for seal. That was fun.

Ciao!

-Jorge

This entry was posted on January 1, 2009 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.