Winter Spirits

There are many depressing things about winter, but one of the worst is when it comes weeks early.

Shriveled viburnum leaves, Nov. 17, 2019 (Margo D. Beller)

I'm no great lover of winter, especially when it brings cold that forces me to turn on the furnace, dry air that chaps my skin, and kills off the few days of comfortable autumn weather when the foliage seems to be at its peak.

Meteorologically, winter is Dec. 21, considered the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight. Nowadays in the U.S., we turn the clocks back to standard time in early November. In the space of a day the sun sets at 5 p.m. and then increasingly earlier, bringing darkness at a time when I am trying to finish my work before making supper. I bring in the bird feeders in the dark nowadays and soon I'll be rising in the dark again, too.

We had a major cold snap in mid-November that killed or damaged any plant that was not taken inside or covered. So foliage on several of my shrubs and those I see during my hikes along the Whippany River is shriveled and brown, not given a chance to change color. And then there is my lawn, which seems to get covered with leaves about a day after MH and I take a rake or blower to it. (The large white oak leaves are the last to come down in the backyard, while the neighbor's walnut tree takes its own sweet time dropping leaves that are blown over my front yard.)

Oak leaves hanging on (Margo D. Beller)

And don't get me started on the pods still hanging in the black locust tree.

Raking is a pain, literally, and so is shoveling snow, another hazard of winter.

No, I don't like cold or the increase in darkness. I spend a lot of time in the early morning on my enclosed back porch, watching for birds and waiting for the sun to rise above the neighbor's house and hit me square in the face, the ultimate in sun lamps for those of us seasonally disordered folk.

But since my complaining about it won't change anything, at least until continued global warming brings more hot days or a lake at my front door from extreme weather, I might as well look at the good things winter brings.

With the shrub foliage down along the hiking path I can see usually hidden streams. Sometimes there are ducks - mallards but also wood ducks and hooded mergansers.  If I am lucky, there's a great blue heron. When tree leaves are down it is easier to see hawks flying overhead.

Shriveled forsythia (Margo D. Beller)

The colorful warblers and other passerines are gone but other birds are arriving from the north because they consider New Jersey warm enough to survive winter. White-throated sparrows are plentiful, as are juncos, the American tree sparrows and fox sparrows, all winter visitors. There may be the occasional surprise, such as a goldfinch hanging around my feeder or a reported rough-legged hawk over a field. In some years, birds of the far north must come farther south to find food because of the lack of seed crops or, in the case of some owls or hawks, animal prey.

And, of course, there are the local birds that don't leave so they will be coming to my feeders because they can't find enough weed or other seeds and the harsh cold has killed off the insects. I'm already seeing more titmice, chickadees, cardinals and various woodpeckers.

Another advantage: The garden work is just about over for the year and I can concentrate on important things, like taking a long walk in the bracing cold and looking for birds foraging to survive.

In the end it will still be cold and winter will still come, whatever the calendar says, and whether I am ready for it or not.

Cold Truths

Only a maniac would be outside on a day when the polar vortex is in town and the air temperature is 3 degrees F but the wind makes it feel like minus 17. We did not get the inches of snow predicted and the sun came out long enough to melt the slush but the bitter, killing cold and wind arrived, just as the weather people said it would.

I am not a maniac, at least not where cold is concerned. I could not even bring out the garbage, much less go looking for birds out in the field.

My favorite winter bird picture. Our snow is gone but the cold remains.
(Margo D. Beller)

Instead, I look out the window.

I have been leaving the feeders out for the past week, sure the bears would be finally hibernating. Today I am sure they are because that is what I feel like doing, too. I have fleece over my pajamas, top and bottom, ready to go back to bed at a moment's notice. First, I go to my sunny office, open the curtains for more warmth than what my hard-working furnace is providing and listen to Bach.

From there I hear cardinals outside, perhaps poking around the hedges behind the deer netting for what they can scare up. I have no doubt they have also been at the house feeder. When I looked out earlier I saw a titmouse fly in. It was all puffed up to keep warm air under its feathers the way you or I would put on many layers to keep our body heat trapped inside. When I put out seed it is the type that has a high fat content to provide energy and thus warmth. Suet has an even higher fat content because suet is rendered fat.

In the past I might've gone out.
Not today. (Margo D. Beller)

It is the coldest day I've experienced in years. It makes me anxious: Will the furnace keep working? Will I be warm enough? Why do I feel the deep need to go outside and get out of the house when I know being outside could literally mean death?

There's an advantage to being a "bird brain" and not having the capacity to worry over the whys and wherefores. You eat and find shelter from the wind and hungry predators or you die. It's as basic as that. When I watch the birds in the bitter cold I feel sorry. I think of homeless human beings and those who are forced by circumstance to have to go out on a day like this and work to make a living and I feel pity for them and anger at the weather, the government officials who can't or won't do the things necessary to make the world better, the state of our world itself. Mostly, I just feel frustrated.

I continue to listen to Bach to stay calm. I see the bare tree branches blowing around, glad we did not lose power so the furnace can keep going. I allow the sun rays to hit me in the eyes because the light and warmth make me feel better. Not even a turkey vulture is flying around now looking for its carrion meal. I think of the last time I fell outdoors, slow to get up. On a day like this that carrion could be me.

Another single-digit cold night is expected but tomorrow is predicted to be "warmer," in the upper 20s. It could be worse, I guess. For now, to use a phrase that has become all too prevalent in a mainly negative way, I shelter in place.

A Taste of Spring

For a few short moments, I could forget it is just a week after mid-January. The temperature had gone into the upper 40s or low 50s F and the last batch of snow and ice had melted. The frozen soil was turning muddy in parts as I walked our nearly 1/2 an acre, picking up brush and other garbage blown in from other pails and then caught in fencing and snowed over.

Brook, once the ice melted (Margo D. Beller)

There is a titmouse singing its high-pitched spring song. The white-breasted nuthatches are singing their high-pitched, nasal song. They seem to think it is spring. The black-capped chickadees are searching the bushes and tree branches for any grubs or insects foolish enough to think it spring. I see a couple of daffodils and at least one hyacinth has been so fooled, sticking their noses above the defrosting soil.

I leave my property and take a walk. I feel the need to get out now that the ice has melted and the road is merely wet and not treacherous. Just a few days ago local waterways were thick with ice. Along the linear park near me called Patriots Path, the Whippany River was solid ice and you could see where the heavy rain that fell before the recent freeze caused the river to overspill its banks, creating a frozen wonderland.

Today, however, as I walked the water was flowing in the local brook and the nearby dog park had 18 cars parked in the lot and across the road - 18 people (at least) taking 18 dogs (likely more) out in the mild air to let them run around, not minding that their feet (man and dog) were getting mucky.

Whippany River overflow and freeze (Margo D. Beller)

I continued along the road and saw a number of robins flying around, picking at branches and also at the thawing grasses and dirt. Until now they have been living off what they can find, including the fruits left on the poison ivy and other vines or shrubs. (Some need a good freeze until they are palatable.) Now, the robins are looking for protein.

I walked and I was not alone. There are others out walking or jogging along the road. When it is arctic cold and wind chills in the negative numbers, the inclination is to stay in and hibernate like a bear, at least for me. So when it is finally warm and the sun is out, I try to be out too. I want to be part of a greater world, not stuck indoors. (However, I hope the bears are still in their dens!)

One particular woman is walking much faster than I am. I watch her move on, earbuds in, ignoring the world. I was stopped at a pond and saw that in the thawed part there were mallards - first a pair, then (when I moved out of direct view) about a dozen, males and females. And something else, a lone American black duck, a pleasant surprise. Like the mallards, black ducks are dabblers. They will swim on the surface and put their heads into the water to feed. Unlike the mallards, male and female black ducks look alike. So while I don't know whether this particular duck was male or female, I do know I got to see something the woman bopping to her personal soundtrack in her own little world did not (presuming she'd even care).

Ducks on pond - mallard pair and, on ice at left, a black duck (Margo D. Beller)

Reluctantly, I came home through the community garden where lately, for the first time in a while, I've heard the honking of the Canada geese that come down to the grassy field to feed and rest. Where were they during the freeze? Some office park lawn, no doubt. There are lots of those out here in the NJ suburbs.

As I write, the clouds have moved in and it is getting close to sunset, nowadays right around 5pm ET. There will be clouds and drizzle tomorrow, heavy rain the day after. It will be even warmer but then, as usual, once the rain is gone it will turn colder. Soon it will be the end of January. Then it's February. "Spring" is over until the real thing comes along.

When I was born, that particular February day was the coldest on record. I have to remember that when we have these January thaws. They are but a respite, a taste of spring, a reminder that no matter how bad (or cold) things get there is always another chance for a better day.

I Hate Winter!

Every year it seems I feel the need to express myself about how winter makes me feel. I feel down. Why?

Winter is cold.

Snowfall, New Jersey (Margo D. Beller)

It is often as dry outside as it is in my heat-filled home and my skin quickly turns to sand paper.

There is a good chance of snow and ice.

It is hard to get out of bed in the morning, much less take a long walk.

Just as I am finally feeling awake and alert the shadows get long at 3pm ET, so I know darkness is only two hours away. That means I have to take in the feeders at 5pm so they won't be attacked by bears overnight (until they go to their winter dens. But who knows if they will if our climate continues to warm?). If I have water dishes out for the birds, they must come in because the water will freeze when the temperature gets below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

When the weather is expected to be very bad, say a major drop in temperature after an unusual warm spell, the birds attack the feeders. Chickadees, titmice and white-breasted nuthatches grab and go while house sparrows and house finches sit on the perches and feed until I chase them off so the other birds can eat.

Winter days are short and that depresses me. It reminds me of my mortality.

Winter intensifies a feeling of loss. One friend is mourning the recent death of his sister, while another's wife succumbed to cancer in August. December reminds me of friends who are out of my life such as the one who stopped talking to us five years before his sudden death in 2012, just after his 56th birthday. We found out about it through the most accidental of circumstances. He went to his death with his secrets. I turned his age two months later.

I used to send real holiday cards in the mail. Each year my card list grows smaller because someone has died, stopped talking to me or, more often, greetings are received virtually, via email and Facebook. And even when I do send a card there is little to say aside from I'm still here and still alive despite the best efforts of mankind (cars, diseases, stress) to kill me, and that I hope for peace the next year.

Maybe that's enough.

I try to remember things that are good about this time of year. There is a starkness to the winter landscape that is striking. Hanukkah and Christmas and Kwanzaa bring colorful lights, clothing and food to cheer otherwise gloomy and dark nights.

Winter landscape - Great Swamp (Margo D. Beller)

And, as MH reminds me, the beginning of December is the time when the sunset is the earliest it will be. It will remain that way for about a week and then the sunset times will gradually get later. (However, sunrise times will continue to be later, too, so the days will continue to appear short until the winter solstice on Dec. 21. Then the sun will start rising earlier.)

My friends should know I am working to give myself a reason not to be depressed. Seeing some family for Thanksgiving helped. Seeing some friends over the holidays will help, too. So will filling out the few cards I'll be sending, hoping to receive some in return. There are still birds to be seen during the winter including those at the feeders and wild ducks on all types of waterways.

If I can wake up, see the sun shining and have the energy to make my daily trips outside to put up the feeders and the water dishes for the birds, I'll be satisfied. But I'll be happier when spring finally comes.