Bald Eagle Fly Over

I've seen them in zoo's.  I've seen them on TV.  I've seen hundreds of pictures of them.  Today I saw my first Bald Eagle in the wild... so to speak. 

I had filled the bird feeder and then started adding some water to the pond.  As I was standing around this huge bird was approaching at about 50 feet.  It looked just like the pictures.  It was very large and I was awestruck.  What a magnificent bird.  After he was gone I just stood there and then said to myself, "WOW."

Then I started telling folks about what I saw and it would appear I'm the only person in the whole world that hasn't seen a Bald Eagle in the wild.  Can't say that anymore.

Lots of New Visitors and Lots of Pond Ice

We have blue ones, black and white ones, yellow bellied, and yellow tailed and those birds are just the new ones who have never visited our yard before.... at least visited when we were watching.  Of course the permanent residents are here in abundance.  I have noticed that four or five Robin's have also been hang'n close which is unusual in that they usually only stop by for a drink and occasional bath.  I believe all this new activity is because we still have about a foot of snow on the ground and they can't get to their regular winter chow.   So I've been filling the feeder twice a day to help the circus stay hale and happy during this bird famine.

This morning the thermometer was showing -13 degrees.  This isn't a record for Grand Junction but is in the top five for all time low... got that?  Because of the cold the pond has been doing some strange things. 

Yesterday I topped up the water level.  This morning I looked out and the level was about 8 or 9 inches below full.  To put that another way, I could hear the pump suck'n air.  This is bad.  Very bad especially when pumps are in the $700 range.  So I rushed to the garage and got the hose, hooked it up and started filling the pond.  After about 15 minutes the water level was still low.  It appeared the level had not risen but maybe an inch or two at the most.  Where was all the water going?

I started looking for overflows or leaks when I discovered the bridge pond was getting water ON TOP OF THE ICE.  What's that about?  The water was coming over No Name Falls and the ice hole was there but overflowing.  I then realized the water flowing over Humpty Dumpty Falls was iced up restricting the flow thus causing a backup.  This was caused when the flow was diminished because of the low supply of water to the pump.  It's all related.

I got out my handy dandy 6 foot steel persuader and started to chip away at the ice on Humpty Dumpty Falls.  It was slow going as I couldn't get real close because of the snow.  I finally got the hose and just directed the flow to the falls and the warmer water coming from the hose melted enough ice to lower the water level in the Bridge Pond.

So now all is well with the pond.  As I write this the temperature is a balmy 15 degrees an increase of about 30 degrees from this morning.  Very unusual weather for this area.... of course everywhere I've ever lived people have always commented on the unusual weather.

If your getting confused by which falls is which and what pond is where you can see it all with a mouse click HERE to see pictures and descriptions... very neat.

As an aside; I was going to tell you about cannons and cannon balls and then explain about brass monkeys and stacking cannon balls on the monkeys and then the cold coming, the brass monkeys changing temperature causing the monkeys to warp like a cookie flat in an oven, and spilling the cannon balls... this of course has become known as "freezing the balls off a brass monkey."  I also found that the story isn't true so I just wrote about the cold and now I'm feeling obliged to share the story with you anyway.  FWIW Ha!

I also found the largest cannon ever built was in the late 17th century and named the Tsar Cannon.  It weighted 12 ton+ and had a bore caliber of 35 inches.  Now that was a cannon ball.  I wonder how they ever got it loaded into the cannon.

SNOW and More SNOW.... 15 to 18 inches of the stuff.

Snow has been forecast for the last few days.  It was supposed to arrive Monday, stick around thru Tuesday and be sunny on Wednesday.  As strange as it may sound the snow arrived Monday afternoon and it snowed the rest of the day just like the forcast predicted... amazing.  It snowed all night.  It snowed Tuesday until about noon and it was clear enough to see the sunset Tuesday evening. 

Before the snow the yard looked like this:                     Tuesday morning the yard looked like this:

I waded through the snow to feed the birds.  In fact, I fed the birds twice on Tuesday for no other reason than I felt sorry for the little guys as all their food sources were buried in over a foot of snow.  A Coopers Hawk came buy Tuesday afternoon and searched each tree for birds.  It spooked a couple out of the trees but didn't have any success in catching them although it tried.  Exciting to watch.

I also waded through the snow to shake the trees next to the fence before their branches split because of the snow piled on them.  By the fence the snow had drifted to about 3 feet.  Getting the snow off the branches was a good thing.... for the trees.

So now it's evening and the skies have cleared and it is supposed to stay that way until Friday when it supposed to snow again.  Because the skies are clear and the snow is on the ground the weather guru's say we will have a inversion where the cold air is trapped on the ground.... tonights low is forecast to be -3 degrees.  The high temperature on Wednesday is supposed to be a balmy 18... WhooHoo!

Our house is well insulated.  We have a good enough furnace.  We have plenty of blankets.  We have a gas fireplace in case the heater goes south or the power fails.  We have food in the cupboards.  We are ready.  Bring it on Ma Nature... I ain't scared.  It's just winter!

Brrrrr... Winter Has Arrived

For the past four or five days the morning low has been in the single digits.  On top of that the wind has been blowing.  I was surprised that one of the first casualties of the cold was Hector the spitting frog.  His stream of water got smaller and smaller and the ice build up from his nose down toward the pond was getting bigger and bigger until there was nothing coming out.  Hector quit being a spitter and started being the poster frog for this freezing weather.

I'm sure Hector will once again spit like a champ and probably before spring... we just need a few days of warmth to set things right.

In the mean time the birds continue to attract the raptors of our clime and this keeps everybirdy on their toes... so to speak.

Snow is forecast to start tomorrow (Sunday) evening and continue on and off for the better part of the coming week.  Once is starts snowing it usually warms some and I expect the single digit temperatures to abate for a while.  There is no doubt they will be back as January is the the coldest month for Grand Junction.

The pond water will continue to flow and the ice will become more than a foot thick in the bridge pond where the water moves the slowest.  It is truly a different look than what one pictures in their minds eye when a pond is introduced to a conversation.  Many people shut down their ponds for the winter but we prefer to keep it running and enjoy the different and sometime spectacular influence the winter season brings to the pond environment.