I had expected to get more photography in during the end of December and beginning of January, but, like my scaup friend, I had to go in to the shop for some repairs. I was getting constant, loud, insistent warning messages from an indeterminate source in my midsection, and I was experiencing problems in several systems, including thermal regulation, locomotion, fuel intake, and hydration. At the shop, the technicians eventually determined that the problem was a faulty fluid resevoir in my fuel conversion system, and perhaps some problems with the attached drainage pipe. In other words, it was a gall bladder attack. They kept me for five days while they ran more tests and stabilized everything. I got out on Sunday, the 2nd, and on Monday, the 3rd, I went out into the field with my friends Derrill and Annie.

We had met at their place and walked over to the nearby Deer Lake Park. It was quite a cold day, and in many places there was a fair amount of frost. We passed some dead branches (a.k.a. big sticks) with weird, fibrous frost or ice attached to them. Adding to the strangeness was that nothing else in the vicinity of them was frosty: it was like the sticks were blowing cold air or something. I took a photo or two, but I got some better ones later and we'll get to them further down the page.

We eventually made a turn from a dark southward path onto a sunlit path that led roughly westward. Soon we came across the first bird we had seen in the park, a Spotted Towhee. Here he is, in the spotlight.

We stayed and took photos of the meeting for a while, and then noticed a bunch of small brownish birds in the trees high above us. After watching them for a while and taking some photos of them, I figured out that they were Pine Siskins. None of the photos of them turned out, though—they were too far up.

We continued on and found a Varied Thrush at a bend in the path.

We were on a boardwalk going through a swampy part of the park when Annie spotted a little animal at the side of the path. It was backlit by the sun and its reflection off of the standing water, and it was hard to determine what it was. I took a few photos, deliberately overexposing to try to get some detail on the little beast. Here's the best I could manage. From this, I can't really tell what the little guy was.

He definitely looks like a rodent to me. My best guess is that he's a Townsend's Vole, but that's really just a guess. He could be some other sort of vole, a deermouse (we were at Deer Lake, after all), a lemming, a pocket mouse, a rat, a muskrat, or something else. I'm not that good with identifying mammals. Especially little ones.

Anyhow, our beast scurried off before we could get to the other side of him to get frontlit photos. We continued along the path, and I took several shots of the frost or ice on the plants.

The Wilson's Snipe has recently changed its name: it used to be called the Common Snipe. I can't really blame it. I mean, I sure wouldn't want to go around life being called "common." Would you? I have five or six guide books, and only in the most recent one is it called Wilson's.

Both Derrill and I got great angles on the uncommon snipe and had plenty of time to shoot before he flushed.

Not only was the snipe a pretty bird, but it also was a lifer for me.

We then saw a Great Blue Heron strutting around in a small field to our left. On our right, I found this mossy manhole and thought it would make a good photo subject.

Now we were getting back close to where we had entered the park, and we found some more of the filamentous frost that I referred to at the beginning. Here's a photo of some of it.

Photographing the frost, I heard a familiar call and looked up to find a Black-capped Chickadee. He took off almost as soon as I got my camera pointed at him.

A little further down the path, Annie spotted a worm on the path, working on his tan. I guess no birds were early enough that morning.

Annie being Annie, she had to pick the worm up and play with it.

Okay, that was bad. Those of you who know me, though, probably wonder why I don't write things like that more often. I certainly say things like that fairly often.

We came across some more of the freaky frost. Here I played with the photo to bring up the stringy detail.

Up above the path, there was a Great Blue Heron in a tree. Strong light was falling on the bird but not the tree, giving him quite the commanding presence.

At the last path junction we crossed, there were a bunch of Pine Siskins flitting around in the trees. These siskins were much lower than the ones we had seen earlier, and now we had frontlight on them.

We stayed and took photos of them for a few minutes. After a little while, I caught this shot when one of the little guys interrupted his upside-down feeding to have a look at me.

I tried to tell him he had something stuck to his bill, and made some wipe-the-side-of-my-mouth gestures to him, hoping he would get the hint. But he just ignored me and continued on with his upside-down ways.

Back at the park entrance, the sunlight had moved onto some more of the hairy frost.

I hadn't noticed it while we were out, but I was pretty cold and exhausted when we got back; I guess I was still weak from the hospital ordeal. I hurried home to defrost and have a nap.

Happy to be free and in the field,
Tom