Where are the Snows of Yesteryear?
A Cold December with little Snow
The fifteen century French poet, François Villon wrote the beautiful and oft-quoted line, “Où sont les neiges d’antan.” And though he was surely thinking metaphorically it’s hard not to steal his line and think meteorologically. Where is the snow? It is hard not to compare winters from my childhood to the winters of today. As a child, Christmas was always blanketed in snow, a coveted gift always a sled or toboggan, that we would take out to a local golf course and ride fast down the hills. But I can’t remember the last time snow was a part of the holidays as an adult.
But if there wasn’t snow, December was colder, mostly a proper cold for this time of the year, often in the 20s, with the wood stove churning to keep the house warm. Birds--House Finch, Tufted Titmice, Black-capped Chickadees—flocked to the feeders on these days and those who weren’t looking for a free meal found the few bushes where berries remain (like winterberry).
The downside of no snow on the ground is that it is harder to see those brown-colored winter visitors on brown, dried farm fields—the Horned Larks, Pipits, Snow Buntings and the occasional Lapland Longspur (just the name rings of the north!). Larks showed up by the hundreds at the local farm this December (one day counting over 200 and the birders on Christmas count on December 28 saw over 400!). Picking through all of the little larks against the corn stubble in the fields is tricky, the birds disappearing in a trough then reappearing, the flock putting up, circling, landing again only to disappear in an instant. It’s like a great game of tag in a vast field. But the abundance of birds was wondrous at a time when lots of birds are rare.
Most birds have headed south for the winter, which is where I also travelled—to Maryland—for the holidays. It was a treat to be looking out on the ocean to see Surf, Black and White-winged Scoters and Loons, long and regal surfing the waves. I could spend hours at the beach watching Sanderlings chasing the waves. I participated in a Christmas Bird Count “away” (after doing one at home) and felt like everything was new, from the loblolly pines that lined the roads to the thousands of Snow Geese winging overhead. So that’s where these big white geese spend their winters, I learned. I could have learned this by looking at my bird guide but I understand more deeply when I experience these things. It’s also where lots of Yellow-Rumped warblers spend the winter. When I spied a Brown Thrasher in a bush—a bird I see mostly in spring at home—it felt like saying hello to an old friend. Here’s to friends old and new in the New Year. Happy 2025.
