Snow Goose

As I approached the South Tivoli Bay, I heard a dramatic squawk. Two enormous birds looped and circled around each other. It took a moment for me to realize what I was looking at: an Immature Bald Eagle chasing a Great Blue Heron. It seemed like a case of teenaged miscalculation. The Heron dropped into the reeds and vanished. The eagle flew off.

Thrilled by the show, I continued snowshoeing south, following the path that meanders near the edge of the South Tivoli Bay. The Bay is wide and shallow, often freezing up before the rest of the river. Snow covered the ground and the temperatures hovered near freezing. I could see that the Bay had a thin coat of ice, gleaming in the high noon sun. There are three underpasses that lead to the Hudson River and near those underpasses stood open water. There had to be ducks nearby.

Goose bedraggled; photo by Bard student Christina BaalI arrived at a jut of land affectionately referred to as Buttocks Island. I walked out through the crevice of the island and peered south. A flock of Ring-Billed Gulls stood on the thin sheet of ice. Soon, the heron joined them, standing tall next to its shorter compatriots. I spotted the eagle in a far tree on the end of Cruger Island, perched near a mature eagle, it’s white head visible without my binoculars. The immature eagle flew over, swooping low over the gulls. They all took to the air, while the heron stood, refusing to engage in another chase.

I loitered for a while, scoping the Common Mergansers floating in the open water near the underpass. Beyond the underpass I could see the far shore of the river, the hamlet of Glasco and the Catskills, lumpy blue, in the background. It was a perfect blue-sky day, the sort of day that demands time outside.

I poked around the south side of Buttock’s Island, hoping without much hope, to see a Snow Goose there. Just after Hurricane Sandy swept through, the Goose arrived. It looked pretty bedraggled, white feathers all askew. When thousands of Snow Geese migrated through the valley this fall it did not pick up and join its cousins. I assumed it was too injured to fly. Despite this, the bird had made it through December, with frequent visits from Bard College students, eager to see a special bird. Through the fall I had grown fond of the bird, thought of it as my goose, and had resisted an urge to feed it.

The bird wasn’t there, of course. I refused to get sentimental. This was just nature taking her course. A fox or a coyote could have made it a good meal.

I continued on my way, taking the narrow path that rolls over hillocks and hugs the South Tivoli Bay. The views through the trees were long, out to patches of open water where Black Ducks floated. As I approached the mouth of the Sawkill, I heard the cackle of the Kingfisher that had been there all summer and fall. And then, to my amazement, there was my goose, idling in the open water! It shoved further out as I approached, full of admiration for its will to live.

 

New Year's Mountains

View from the summit of Giant LedgeNear the summit of Wittenberg Mountain, the wind howling through my wool hat, I heard the chickadees. I looked over into the Spruce trees and there were the bright little birds, tilting their black caps at me, as if to get a better look at this person on snowshoes, trudging her way through the snow. My appreciation for the Chickadee soared. Here they were, just over 3,500 in such cold, singing away. My toes were cold, my ears burned, my fingers were numb. I didn’t feel like singing.

It was January 1, and we were five, ringing in the New Year by heading for the summit of Wittenberg. Wittenberg is 3,780 feet and is neighbors to Cornell and Slide in the Burroughs Range of the Catskills. The guidebook describes the climb up Wittenberg as “extremely difficult.” I had been up the mountain before, but on a spring day. And, I was feeling fresh that day. On this New Year’s hike I started out with sore legs; the day before, I had hiked up Giant Ledge and Panther with my friend Max.

Max duck-taping his snowshoesMax and I had left late on the 31st, after spending some time duck-taping his snowshoes, and stopping for sandwiches. The sun was high, a crystal blue-sky day. The trail had been broken, though we still wore snowshoes. In several sections, the trail had been blown over and we tromped down the fresh powder as we passed black cherry trees and then moved through hemlock forests.

This was Max’s first Catskill hike and I wanted to take him up something with great views (not the case with every Catskill peak). We were not disappointed. The scan east toward the Hudson, to Overlook, Roundtop and Plateau was magnificent. After easily summiting Giant Ledge, we headed on to Panther, and returned to the car by three in the afternoon happy. On our walk I had seen exactly two birds: two Hairy Woodpeckers and a few Chickadees out in the sunshine. It was the perfect close to a not so perfect year.

I try not to place too much pressure on the New Year, but like many I have hopes that something might change. I don’t hope for anything too farfetched like world peace or finding love or not ever hearing the words fiscal cliff again. I keep it small: that I’ll write with more focus or become a better birder. When you spend a day hiking up a mountain, you are not writing. And a mountain in winter, you are not birding. I ignored this, hoping for the sheer high of a day outside, of sweating then freezing, of standing above the world and looking down.

Sun rising, from WittenbergOur group gathered at the trail at 8, Woodland Valley still dark.  I only knew one of my companions, Connie, who has hiked every peak in the Catskills dozens of times. She’s a sort of godmother of the mountains, leading people to summits they need to complete all 35 peaks above 3,500 feet. Three others on this hike “needed” both Wittenberg and Cornell. I didn’t need anything but a hike. Before we left I said, “if anyone out front flushes a Ruffed Grouse, let me know.” One companion, who I did not know, said, “I hate grouse.” I looked at her in surprise. How was that possible? “I would like them dead,” she said. I hoped she was joking but her expression said otherwise. “To eat, of course,” she added.

Puzzled, I turned and headed down the trail, which was mercifully broken.  Two hundred yards from the trailhead, the Ruffed Grouse flushed from the cover of a downed tree. The flurry of flapping wings delighted me. My first bird of the year.

I try not to place too much pressure on the first bird of the year. But I have come to see them as an omen. A good bird makes me feel lucky, and the hope is that luck will follow me into the New Year. (How we delude ourselves!) I had heard a Carolina Wren singing as I waited for others in the parking lot off of route 28 at 7 in the morning. But the first bird I saw was this Ruffed Grouse. And here’s one cool thing about a Ruffed Grouse: in winter they grow projections off the side of their toes. This creates mini-snowshoes for the bird. We would both be snowshoeing on this long day.

From the summit of WittenbergThe wind howled as we neared the summit. Such different weather from the previous clear sunny day! Near the summit, there are a series of steep climbs, moments where you need both hands and feet to get over rocks. These rocks were iced and snowed over making the ascent trickier than usual. We spotted each other and pulled each other over ledges until we were at the summit. There, we marveled at the view down onto the vast Ashokan Reservoir, which is part of New York City’s water supply. But we couldn’t stand and admire long in the cold and wind. We huddled behind a few trees and gulped water and sandwiches. Two in our party continued on toward Cornell while the rest of us headed downhill. Down to our cars, to our lives, to the end of a special day, which is really just like any day.