January 10

January 10, 2009 by OrientSee.

 Once again another cold windy day. The crusty snow gave every bird and beast ample warning of my approach. I barely left the street as I entered Rosie’s Thicket when two hawks lifted off the trees and flew off towards the train yard. They had heard me coming. The marsh was flooding with a very high tide. The grass was completed submerged but strangely there were only a few ducks paddling above the flats. I decided to get moving along before the tide made impossible to get across the Overlook flats. There’s a primitive sort of feeder off the path out to the Overlook. A Tree Sparrow decided to take charge by intimidating all the Chickadees that wanted to feed from the box. There was a mixed crowd beneath scuffling over the dropping. It was a lively bunch.

The Overlook panne was frozen over and that meant nothing was moving. I got over to the Boardwalk and it was a completely different story. There was a very large (500+) flock of Canada Geese. A lot of Mallards were floating closer in and in the distance a small flock of Brant was off by themselves.It seemed like there were geese everywhere.

The closer in crowd were busy feeding. Bottoms up in the icy water.

Near the watch tower, a small flock of Bufflehead were being harassed by some gulls who took offense at these small diving ducks.  I can’t imagine what got the gulls so worked up.

The Revere creek was completely frozen over even with the exceptional high tide. That meant ice and little else to see but it was a good day. The coyotes seem to be laying low. There were no new tracks or paths but tonight’s snow will change that. It will be nice to walk without all the crunchiness and look for more bird tracks.

Ciao!

-Jorge

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