Changeable

The sky was gray and everything was wet but the rain appeared to be over.  The water was calm and the air quiet.  Carolina wrens, juncos, and white throated sparrows were breakfast guests.  I startled a pileated woodpecker when I came back from the kitchen. Later a downy woodpecker ignored me as it ate suet. 

Red breasted and hooded mergansers plied the creek waters. I saw butterbutts flitting through the wet branches.  That made me notice that the volunteer peach was blooming.  Wood ducks prospected for nesting sites along the lake. The tide was very high at noon almost a week past full moon.

Afternoon could not have been more different - sunny, windy, and colder.  The lake was full of activity.  Shovelers were pinwheeling to stir up food from the bottom.  Three cormorants basked on a log.  One turtle had ventured out onto a different log.  The wood ducks were still around as was a dark duck I couldn't identify.  Even a goose passed through the jumble of snags.  Down on the creek it was all about gulls and mergansers.  The gulls fought over their catch. 

Toward evening, songbirds flitted through the branches, but they were silhouettes against the sky and I couldn't identify them.  A couple of female red breasted mergansers splashed and dived together in one spot for a long time.  I could not figure out if they were bathing or fishing or what.  A sizable flock of mergansers collected downstream from the neighbor's dock.  Puffy clouds took color from the sunset, 

Wet

There were only scattered clouds at first.  The air was cold enough to make my breath smoke.  A squirrel was acting squirrelly at breakfast.  It was doing backflips off tree trunks and other silliness.  Spring madness, showing off for an unseen audience, some kind of squirrel catnip?  Blue jays were happy I restocked the mealworm dish.  Downy woodpeckers appreciated the reduced competition for suet. 

On the creek red breasted mergansers continued to patrol and fish.  There have been more of them hanging around longer this year than I can remember. The redbuds were beginning to swell and turn pink.  I found some puffballs emerging through the moss and looking so much like feces I had to pry one up to be sure.  By mid morning the sky was overcast.

Yellow rumped warblers, juncos, and white throated sparrows joined us for lunch.  Then a light rain began.  Carolina wrens were not discouraged.  They even figured out how to reach the suet.  However the light grew weaker and the camera struggled.  I was amazed that a butterbutt picked such a cold, rainy day to bathe. 

Calmer

Breezy, the meteorologists call it.  It was a cold wind, I say. The yellow rumped warbler and the white throated sparrow were puffed up against the cold.  The downy and red bellied woodpeckers were insulated with suet.  Several blue jays showed up as soon as I put out bark butter balls.  One was disheveled by the "breeze." 

After lunch, a titmouse tackled the upsidedown suet. The cardinals were billing and cooing again.  I saw a junco up in the cherry.  A bluebird visited the mealworm dish. 

The red breasted merganser flock was back at the dam outfall.  Pelicans were all up and down the creek. A pair of buffleheads bathed and a few hooded mergansers paddled around the dock.

Sunset colors painted shreds of cloud, first gold, then tangerine, then rose, then smoke, as I drove West.  The horizon to the South was a luminous purple. 

Blue sky flood

 The yellow rumped warbler was still frustrated by the new suet arrangement.  But the downy woodpecker liked it.  Pelicans flocked to the creek to avoid the strongest winds. Two shared a downstream dock with cormorants.  A great blue heron stood on the bulkhead.  Red breasted and hooded mergansers fished in the creek. 

The Hague was way over its bank this morning.  It was a wind and tide flood, the wind having shifted to almost due North.  And it was considerably higher than the full moon tide on March 1st. 

A dozen female red breasted mergansers were accompanied by three drakes.  Crows landed on the pool cover to get a drink.  Three blue jays were disappointed that the mealworms had been gobbled up. 

Still windy

The sun was bright in a cloudless sky. White throated sparrows, Carolina wrens, starlings, red bellied and downy woodpeckers, and a blue jay came seeking breakfast. Fishing birds congregated at the dam outfall.  I saw red breasted mergansers, gulls, cormorants, and pelicans.  A charred log jammed against the dock. 

At lunch, a yellow rumped warbler gave up on the flat-hung suet and worked on the bark butter balls.  After lunch, a dead heron floated by in a raft of leaves and trash.  I couldn't tell if it was tangled in the trash or killed by the wind, or possibly something else.  Live gulls, mergansers, and a pelican fished further downstream. A lone goose stayed on the lake with the turtles. 

Later I saw a few hoodies among the red breasted mergansers. Some buffleheads were also attracted by the fishing. At times one bird tried to steal another's catch.  A live heron paced along the marsh grass.  The coot was after something along the edges of pilings and dock floats.  Algae or crustaceans?  Pelicans passed by repeatedly. A bit of cloud rimmed the sky at sunset. 

Howling gale

The March lion was a day late. The noise of the wind was constant all day even though it was gusty.  It was like being right beside a jet runway.  But there was more sunshine than had been predicted. At breakfast I saw starlings, yellow rumped warblers, white throated sparrows, a Carolina wren, doves, chickadees, cardinals, downy woodpeckers

The creek was very choppy and even the lake water was splashing.  Gulls and buzzards played with the winds. A couple of egrets soaked up sun above the bulkhead across the creek.  Below them in the water was a small flock of red breasted mergansers.

Before lunch, I tossed out a peanut that had fallen on the floor and the squirrel who found it was not content with one.  A larger flock of mergansers gathered at the dam outfall.  It included both hooded and red breasted.  Rafts of leaves floated on the creek.  A pelican landed on the water.  I had expected to see more of them here to escape the worst winds out on the bay. 

Sunset was fiery with storm clouds flying across the sky.  Homeward commute for the waterfowl was a struggle.  The coot reappeared just as the light fell too low for the camera. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel recorded 75mph sustained winds with gusts peaking at 84mph.  That is equivalent to a Cat. 1 hurricane. Yesterday was also a full moon, but the tide was not unusually high. 

Wet

The weather folklore was that if March came in roaring like a lion, it would depart as gently as a lamb. However, this March arrived more like a wet dog shaking himself off. Red breasted mergansers bathed and preened.  A few buffleheads, a coot, and numerous gulls were afloat fishing.  Later a heron used the floating dock to watch for fish.  Two cormorants perched on the lake snag but the rain was like fog for the camera. 


Despite the wet, there were feeder visitors.  Red bellied and downy woodpeckers took turns withe the suet.  The cardinals were courting again - she's a pretty high-maintenance bird.  I finally caught the white breasted nuthatch sneaking a seed.  Even the white throats got up on the feeder.  One starling was able to get some suet.  A winter-drab goldfinch joined a female house finch and gave me a good comparison shot.  Blue jays preferred the dish of bark butter balls but a squirrel got into the dish and ate the mealworms.