Month: March 2007

One of my neighbors made an appearance this morning after hiding away at home for the winter. My neighbor is a beaver and lives in a lodge catty-corner across the creek. Also, a male-female pair of mallard ducks are hanging out around the lighthouse again this spring. I suspect that they are the same pair…

Air temperature: 58 degrees F Water temperature: 42 degrees F Wind: 20 mph, NNE Sunny. A few patches of snow remain along the trail, the last remnants of winter.

A friend of mine gave me the book Home Ground edited by Barry Lopez. It’s a dictionary of idiosyncratic American landscape terms. The definitions are written by a who’s-who of nature writers, so its not your run-of-the-mill dictionary. It’s an exploration and celebration of the way language connects us to place. I am enjoying opening…

This morning, two cormorants made simultaneous appearances after a winter’s absence. A Double-crested cormorant swam and dived in the river channel. The other cormorant perched atop channel marker #93 at the mouth of the creek. Yellow chin and white feathers on the back of its head. Eventually, it took off and flew north, revealing a…

This morning, when I looked out the parlor window, several flashes of white on the creek caught my eye. I set up the spotting-scope to take a closer look. Hooded mergansers–eleven of them: five males and six females. Distinguished by their conspicuous white head crest, the males displayed their haute couture, vying for the attention…

Yesterday, I had an errand to run to the sloop Clearwater. By dusk, the tide turned and pushed the remaining ice out of the creek. A strong southerly wind eventually calmed, so I decided to put the canoe in the water and paddle up the creek to where the sloop is moored. In the dim…