Solstice gathering

Last night, there was a small gathering to celebrate the winter solstice. After a lot of good conversation and some amount of wine, I noticed that the weather forecast had been a little off: we were having a light drizzle.

Still, no bother: as the night progressed and as people left, C.N. and I lit a small yule fire (mostly chopped wood, and not a full yule log) in the fire circle and ruminated upon various points of life.

Coyotes yipping

... a LOT for some reason when I arrived back at the forest. Unfortunately, like all my coyote encounters, I didn't get a chance to pull out my camera to get a recording before they quieted down again. A part of me wonders what it was that worked them up so, but a larger part of me is telling me that I probably don't need to go wandering in the dark forest toward coyotes if I don't actually have to do so.

Foggy Morning

Gloomy would be a good description of this very misty morning. The crow-calls didn't really alleviate the feeling, either.

Bird-watch list

The following birds were observed in Saginaw Forest on Saturday, December 17 from 1:00-2:15pm:

• Corvidae
• [American] crow: 4
• Blue jay: 6

• Turdidae
• [American] robin: 2

• Emberizidae
• White-throated sparrow: 2
• Junco: 4

• Regulidae
• Golden-crowned kinglet: 1

• Sittidae
• Red-breasted nuthatch: 2
• White-breasted nuthatch: 5

• Picidae
• Downy woodpecker: 2
• Hairy woodpecker: 1
• Red-bellied woodpecker: 3

• Paridae
• [Black-capped] chickadee: 15

• Cardinalidae
• [Northern] cardinal: 4

Thanks to J.S. for sharing this year's bird count for Saginaw Forest. (Birds ordered based on families, with square brackets indicating my personal assumption of species.)

Birders and a new dusting of snow

I woke up (very) late today, and a dusting of snow had already settled on Saginaw Forest. I guess we're back in winter again?

In speaking with some people at the U, I know that there are going to be birders out in the forest today. I wonder what they'll find here, and whether the past days of warmer-than-average weather will mean a different assemblage (both here and in the area).

WIND!

The warm weather of the past 36 hours has been quickly turning back toward freezing, and although the rain had stopped several hours ago, things are still quite damp. This morning, too, much of the 1/2" of rain and melted snow had caused the vernal creek to go flowing again. By the time I had left home (indeed by the time I had woken up), all the snow had melted and the sheet of ice that had stared to form on Third Sister lake were gone. (Too, the ice on the frog pond was also gone.)

As I rode back this evening, the wind had picked up to gusts of 35 mph (55 kph), and I heard a couple of trees breaking and falling as I rode through the dark to the cabin. I'll have to check on the main road tomorrow morning to ensure that none of those downed trees are actually across the road. Although a part of me knew that the loud crack-crack-craaaaack sound was too far away to actually be of a danger to me, the fact that such a large tree was falling - and that I was surrounded by similarly large trees all subjected to the same winds - made me cycle just a little bit faster for the clearing in front of the cabin.

Quiet(ish) Sunday

Today, I noticed that there were a lot of ducks on the pond. They weren't there yesterday, and I wonder if they are going to be there tomorrow. I wonder if it was because the now-quickly-cooling temperatures are causing a last group of ducks (and geese) to shift southward.

The south side of the lake is icing up, with the ice sheet slowly crawling outward over the open water, up to edge of the tree shade. Will there be a sheet of ice by next weekend? Well, if the nighttime temperatures actually keep dropping well below freezing, then I would say that it's likely!


I also found that - before the snows of Wednesday night - there was an ash tree that had fallen on the boardwalk. Ooops. Gotta go chop that up. But when I got to the boardwalk, I decided that - instead of trying to make it into firewood - I would merely chop it away, because I didn't want to risk ruining the boardwalk with a careless swipe of the chainsaw. After that, I decided to take the wheelbarrow (I had put the chainsaw in the wheelbarrow to preserve my arm - that thing gets heavy to tote) around to the other side of the lake, to chop up some fallen trees that I had been meaning to get to.

After taking out an old felled ash tree, I noticed that the chainsaw was getting significantly more blunt than earlier. Damnable ash: you are such a hardwood to cut! (Pun intended.) So I spent about an hour sharpening the saw and filing to the (hopefully) correct depth.


I really hope that I don't have to deal with too many more ash trees. They are slowly falling; most not across a pathway. However, it remains the most felled tree in the forest these past few months.