February 2026 Freeze up on the pond; Plum Island eagles; coyotes; bird color spectrum

 Tuesday February 10 This very red, very large heart appeared on the little island at the pond this morning, a few days before Valentine's Day. I wondered if a marriage proposal was coming.

 It's been bitterly cold for the last couple of weeks, so cold that I didn't walk some mornings (temperature -3F (-19C), wind chills -17F (-27C). Brrrr! The pond has frozen solid, and people have been walking and cross-country skiing on it (but I'm thinking that's not a great idea).

Later on this morning, I went to Mass Audubon's Broadmoor sanctuary in Natick, just west of Boston. On the way, stopped at the little weir on the Charles River to admire the light on the snow and the smooth curve of the water dropping over the weir.

 At Broadmoor, heard woodpeckers pecking. In the video, first a small woodpecker and then, in the last couple of seconds, a pileated woodpecker hammering (I think).

Love the curves of the water and snow mounds in the marsh.

 Saturday, February 14 Noticed one last flower on Jeannie's Christmas cactus, blooming after a spell without any flowers.

 Sunday February 15  Saw a couple of guys with an auger, drilling a hole in the pond this morning, preparing to go ice fishing - never seen that before!

 Saw a peregrine falcon perched high up in a sycamore next to the pond, ripping a small bird apart, clumps of feathers flying off one after another, drifting down to the ground.

 Went up to Plum Island on the North Shore for another (unsuccessful) search for snowy owls (someone saw one yesterday). But no matter - a wonderful day of birding. Gorgeous sunny day, brilliant blue sky, mild temperatures. Birders all smiles, even without a snowy owl. Just before I got to the National Wildlife Refuge, there was a gaggle of cars parked at the side of the road, birders out in force with telescopes, cameras with long lenses, all looking at a group of 5 bald eagles - 3 adults and 2 juveniles. One flew a short distance over to a duck carcass and started ripping it apart. In the open water, a red-breasted merganser, a few common mergansers and some common goldeneyes. 

 The coastline and adjacent marsh are beautiful in the snow. A couple of female eiders in the water.

 

Stopping along the road: two northern harriers, one standing on a chunk of ice, the other flying nearby, landing, at one point, almost on top of the first one, which then took off. At the maintenance yard, a guy taking photos of birds on the ground: 3 meadowlarks, pecking at seeds (I assume). Fun, as I rarely see them. At the Hellcat parking lot, a flock of elegant cedar waxwings feeding on large, red berries hanging from a tree, staying for quite a while, lots of people taking photos. Mixing in were chipping sparrows, white-throated sparrows, juncos, cardinals, blue jays. 

On the way home, I stopped at Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, where I got to see a 3 hour old lamb, wobbly on its little legs, with a piece of umbilical cord still hanging down. Cuteness quotient off the charts. A couple of little girls perched on little steps looking at it over the pen, completely fascinated. Me, too.

 A couple of other lambs arrived at the beginning of February, so lambing season is in full swing. The goat kids will come a bit later.

Monday February 16 Heard the great horned owls hooting at dusk at the Arb, close to last year's nest.

Wednesday February 18 Dog Olympics! Photo captions: "A very good dog invades course but falls short of medal glory at winter Olympics." and "Nazgul makes his bid for glory on Wednesday." Photo: Maxim Thore/BILDBYRAN/Shutterstock.

Friday February 20 As soon as I started along the pond path this morning, I saw a coyote run across the 4 lanes of the Jamaicaway and down the slope to the footpath. After pausing to look around, it trotted across the ice to the other side of the pond, stopping to sniff at a pile of rocks at the edge of the pond along the way.

 Several neighbors have commented on seeing coyotes around in the evening or early morning over the last couple of weeks. I'm wondering if they are hanging around, hoping to take down another deer.

 Walking at Leverett Pond later this afternoon, there were two male common mergansers and a single male hooded merganser swimming in an open patch of water at one end of the pond. I hadn't seen any mergansers at the local ponds since the cold snap nearly a month ago.

Tuesday February 24 Yesterday, another big snowstorm, around 20' of wet, heavy snow in Boston. The top of this bench by the footpath was barely poking out of the snow. 

 And the Francis Parkman memorial, dappled with snow, was striking. Love that we have a Daniel Chester French sculpture in the neighborhood. 

 Friday February 27 Dale and I drove to Drumlin Farm in Lincoln to see more lambies. Three day old twins below. And the first of the goats was due to give birth today.

I've been hearing more and more birds singing, especially male cardinals, perched at the tippy top of a tree, singing their hearts out.

Saturday February 28 Went to New Haven to celebrate Jeannie's cousin Joanie's 90th birthday earlier this week - quite a milestone! After lunch, went to the Yale Peabody Museum, a natural history collection. My favorite piece was this painting Bird Spectrum by James Prosek (2021), of an array of over 250 bird specimens from the museum collections, arranged in the order of the color spectrum. 

The photograph at the top of the plaque that goes with it shows the actual birds: you can just barely make out the little paper tag, with its identification information, on each one.

 Saturday March 1 And when I flipped my Canadian Inuit art calendar over to March this morning, it, too, was a spectrum of bird color.  Spectacular Ravens, by Kenojuak Ashevak (2003).