Wet

Snow and ice were all gone in the morning.  The wind overnight left evidence and the tide was over the bulkhead an hour before high.  Sparrows, finches, chickadees, and a bedraggled dove came for breakfast.  I left for a meeting. 

By late morning, the precipitation was falling half-congealed, but melting on contact.  A yellow-rumped warbler competed with a downy woodpecker for suet.  A second dove appeared, looking much healthier than the other.  A pelican flew upstream while a mallard paddled below and a bufflehead fished. 

I walked into the back room without my camera and witnessed a drama.  A cormorant battled a fish as big as the bird.  It repeatedly slapped the fish on the surface of the water but couldn't seem to get it started down the gullet.  Suddenly a pelican landed beside the cormorant and grabbed the fish.  They both pulled but the pelican won.  The cormorant pecked the pelican a few times then swam away.  Meanwhile the pelican also had trouble - it got the fish into its pouch but then belched it out and gulped again.  I think it had tried to swallow the fish tail first with all the fins sticking out the first time.

By mid afternoon, the stuff wasn't melting.  Waves of snow came and went.  The birds did not look happy.  About a dozen hooded mergansers maintained station on the creek for a good while, not fishing, just kind of huddling.  There were more males than females.