Back on the water, 2014

I woke to fog. To a duck perched in a tree. It was beautiful and felt out of place, the tree high on a ridge in my front yard. Still, this seemed a good omen: wonders for the day.

Four of us carted our kayaks down the wooden stairs at the North Tivoli Bay launch at noon. Sun, blue sky, a light breeze had taken over. We eased our wetsuit-cloaked bodies into our sleek boats and pushed off. It seemed so normal. And yet but two months ago we were walking this same spot on ice, hefting through snow that reached to our thighs. Now it was all liquid and freedom. To paddle out, under the railroad trestle onto the Hudson River, cold and brown, wide and empty. We skirted the eastern shore, trailing the rip rap, and the still bare trees; the wake of a tug and barge knocked us around a bit. Then we popped back into the bay through a southern passage.

The North Tivoli Bay is a maze of cattail and phragmites. Once before I had paddled from the southern to the northern end, winding through the reeds. But more often, I had gotten lost. My paddle-mates were game to try and return through the reeds. A few dead ends, slicing into muck and forty-five minutes later we had made our way back. None of us were ready to end our first paddle of the season. We all were looking for something that you might call an adventure, not just a lovely meander through reeds. So we launched back onto the big river.

“Let’s see an osprey, a long tailed duck,” Christina said. "And a smew."

I nodded. The osprey was possible. As for the duck, less likely. I didn’t even know what a smew looked like but Christina had been clamoring for one for the past few weeks. (A smew is a dashing looking Eurasian black and white merganser, and a rare visitor to the western Aleutian islands of Alaska).

It is a treat to look for birds with someone more optimistic than I am. “Let’s go find that smew,” I said as we gathered to paddle across the river. The Hudson felt bare, exposed without green to rim the shoreline and boats purring north and south. We spied a few other kayaks but otherwise, it was us, the outgoing tide, and a few spring logs floating south.

Backs already tight from sitting, we stopped in to visit Dock and Kate, who live by the waterfront. They were hard at work, joined by a half dozen others to build a new dock for the Saugerties Lighthouse. We admired their work, stretched our legs, threw sticks for the dogs, and set back onto the water.  

North, we found green-winged teal on the shoreline, a few common mergansers floating nearby and bufflehead out in deeper water. I looked up to see an osprey flying over, the crooked wings distinctive.

“There’s your osprey,” I called to Christina. Sometimes I believe that if you wish hard enough to see a bird, it will appear. Was the smew next? No, what was next, was a one boat parade coming from the south. The unbalanced, brightly colored ship is a replica of the Half Moon, the ship Henry Hudson sailed in 1609. When I think of Hudson I don’t usually have kind thoughts, but looking at this squat ship, I scrolled back to imagine the courage, perhaps folly it took to embark on these early voyages.

“And remember, no gps system or maps, just the moon and stars and a sextant and vast oceans of doubt and wonder,” I said to my travel mates.

Once back in the North Bay, tired and happy from the sun and the movement, we moved slowly, chasing two disgruntled Canada geese. A barred owl hooted from the woods, an early evening call. I spied a lump in the mud--it was now low tide. The shape was odd enough that I stopped to look. Sure enough, the mud lump had two eyes, nostrils. My first snapper of the season. Soon, it squished its head below the surface.

No smew, but a duck in the fog and a snapper in the mud. A river to paddle and friends to paddle with.  

A Birdy Day

Snow Geese in flightThrough the winter on the east coast, I’m happy when I see and hear a few birds in the day. There are house finches at my feeder, the goldfinch, and a black-capped chickadee or two.  And, of course, the reliable woodpeckers, the sapsucker letting out its little mew sound, the pileated cackling in the woods. These birds are like finding little diamonds in a vast landscape.

So when, on Sunday, my friend Bruce Robertson and I went out to see what ducks were coming through the valley, I was stunned by the masses of birds. Hundreds of Canada Geese congregated on the fields at Greig Farm and a flock of over 100 Snow Geese with their black tipped wings skittishly took off, circled and landed. In every direction I looked there were birds coming in or taking off. A puddle of ducks—the puddle just freshly melted ice from this interminable winter—brought me a Pintail with its elegant neck, and an American Wigeon.

An abundance of birdsAnseriformes, I thought. That is the order that ducks belong in. Bruce is teaching an ornithology class at Bard College, and I’m sitting in, learning my birds in a new way, memorizing the orders and families. It’s created some order in my learning, which has been bird by bird. Now I see that the Wigeon and the Green-Winged Teal are related, the one with a black butt, the other with a cream butt. Butt, though, is not the right word, that would be the undertail coverts.

Seeing so many birds in one day, I was intoxicated. And I am trying to decide if the abundance felt so abundant because I’m coming out of winter or if simply lots of birds are a rare thing. I have been spending my long winter evenings sitting by the fire reading the journals of Alexander Wilson, the father of American ornithology. The sheer number of birds within his travels there in early 19^th century is a joy to read of: hundreds of Clapper Rails in one day! Red-headed woodpeckers galore! If I see one of these birds I dance a jig for days.

The oft-overlooked MallardIn that jig-dancing, I often forget to admire and enjoy the more common birds—the Mallard or the Canada Geese. I don’t want to take either of these birds for granted. Hundreds of geese are rounded up near airports every year and slaughtered—to keep planes safe.  There’s a sense that there are plenty of geese out there—a few less won’t make any difference. It does. It will.

Feeding Birds

Hollywood FinchTwo American Crows arrived at my feeder yesterday morning. They looked enormous, black against the white snow, towering over the Dark-eyed Juncos that vied with them for the sunflower seeds that had splashed to the ground. The one let out a few caws and soon both flew off.

The birds at my feeder this cold winter season have been fairly consistent: House Finch, the males turning more red through the winter; Goldfinch in their little yellow tuxedos; Black-capped Chickadee, ready to perch on my head while I refill the feeder; White-breasted Nuthatch peering head-down from a neighboring tree; Tufted Titmouse, their wide eyes in a constant state of alarm; White-throated Sparrows showing off their striped helmets; from time to time a splash of red that is the Cardinal; and a few Mourning Doves, like loaves of bread on a limb, waiting their turn to forage on the ground.  I spend a lot of time with my binoculars watching them come and go. They become, in my mind, my birds. We agree the feeder should be full when the sun comes up. We agree the cat should watch from the safety of the window. We agree they are beautiful.

Female House Finch with ConjunctivitisPerhaps the most common bird at the feeder is the House Finch, which is found throughout the United States. It is a native of western North American. House Finch were illegally caged and brought to the East Coast as pets. They called them “Hollywood Finch”(a much better name than House Finch!). In the 1940s, wanting to avoid prosecution, pet stores released the birds. And from there, they have spread.  They could be considered invasive, though they belong on the continent.

It was while watching my birds one morning that I noticed a male House Finch with a clouded over eye. My heart sank. I took down the feeder even before looking up what might be wrong. Avian conjunctivitis is a disease that has spread on the East Coast in recent years. Infected birds become blind. Unable to find food, they die. I watched as the finch at my feeder dove in for a sunflower seed, then returned its good eye to vigilance. It needed that one eye for both seeing and to look out for a hungry Cooper’s Hawk that might rush through. Living with one eye clearly challenged the bird.

For a while, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology was tracking cases of the disease, which seems isolated to the House Finch. Funding dried up and the project shelved, but the disease clearly continues. Later that day, the DEC sent out an email reminding people to clean their bird feeders. Last year at this time, Redpolls had been dying from diseases, often spread at feeders. Feeders need to be cleaned every two weeks in a 10 percent bleach solution. It’s an odd feeling to be helping the birds and at once helping to spread illness. To feed or not?

Male House Finch with conjunctivitisA House Finch or two sick—does it matter? Yes and no. Yes, in that one sick bird can infect others. No in that it’s not a species that is endangered or even threatened. Still, from looking at the past, I know of those once-abundant species that are now extinct, like the Passenger Pigeon or the Carolina Parakeet.  Could the House Finch become extinct? Who knows.

For now, my job is to keep the feeder full, and clean.

Sailing on Ice, Walking on Water

Ice boat with the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge in the backgroundAn ice boat is a beautiful thing. It glides across the ice on giant ice skates, propelled by a sail. Each boat can hold one, maybe two people, who crouch low, often using feet to direct the rudder. Some are wood, formed and stained over a hundred years ago. Some are sleek and modern. All require ice, thick ice. And wind.  Those two things came together today, March 1, on the Hudson River. It was one of the biggest ice boat events on the river.

From high at Poet’s Walk, just north of the Kingston Rhinecliff Bridge, we could see the boats skidding across the ice. In the not so far distance, an enormous tanker lazily crunched its way south in the open channel. The ice boats stayed away from that channel, zipping carefree north to Barrytown and south toward the bridge. Four or five boats were under sail.

Ice boats with tug and barge in the backgroundWhen we rounded the small promontory to a cove on the Rokeby property I wasn’t prepared for the sight before me: rows of cars and pick up trucks parked on the ice. So that’s how thick it was! People who grew up in this are describe driving across the river in winter. That is no longer possible because a coast guard cutter keeps the channel clear. But also—we don’t have enough cold to make the ice on the river solid enough. (No comment on climate change here. For now.)

People gathered about, preparing their boats for a sail. There must have been forty boats in all, small and large. A friend pointed out the stars in the pack, like the Rocket, built in 1888, which had not be on the ice since 1925. The Shrewsbury Ice Yacht Club had rebuilt this gem.  And if there were forty boats, there were hundreds of people, chatting, eating, drinking, finding old friends and making new ones. I have never seen so many men with beards wearing Carhartts. Every one of them looked like they could fix or repair anything. In the cold.

The RocketI have seen the ice boats but one other time, two years ago. In the quiet shallow waters of the South Tivoli Bay, the water freezes over quickly. It’s the safest place to boat. But on that day not a breath of wind emerged. We all stood around admiring the boats. And the next day the temperatures soared and the boats were plucked from the melting ice. To have enough cold days that the big river is thick enough and smooth enough is a rare treat. Ricky Aldrich, who owns the Rokeby property says he’s never seen ice so thick in all of his years living by the river.

It is just now, in March, that I start to miss the Hudson River, the wide expanse of sky over my shoulders as I kayak out to Magdalen or Cruger Islands, or dip into the North Tivoli Bay. I start to dream of long days on the water, exploring reaches to the north, where the river narrows. So I spent today on the river, though not in my kayak. I stood on the ice, then walked out and north, following cracks in the ice, and listening to the ice groan and buckle as the tide came in. At times I laughed a nervous laugh, worried that the ice might crack and drop me into the cold. As a boat sped by, further out on the ice, I heard the swoosh of runners against ice, a sound like an ice skater carving a hard, frosty turn, only amplified. As I continued north, walking on water, I looked out at the vast expanse of ice that covered what I think of as my reach.  

My reach, frozen