There are aspects of winter that Michiganders can count on. Snow. Cold. Ice. Grey days. Days so bright and beautiful they fill you with awe. These are givens. There are also surprises.
Early this winter, for example, as the dog and I set out on a morning walk, we noticed two Vs of birds flying by. The V on the left was as expected, a bunch of Canada geese honking and carrying on as they traveled. Canada geese never seem to run out of things to say to each other. Their V-formations are a common sight and sound around here. I glanced at the other birds, the V on the right, and there came this squawk. “I beg your pardon?” I thought. Then the sound filtered in, and I knew it was. I checked out the birds again and saw that the second group of geese were wearing their legs extra long. In fact, they weren’t geese at all; they were sandhill cranes. I didn’t even know they sometimes fly in Vs.
The bald eagle in the back yard of the house our daughter’s flipping surprised her some, “but I thought it must be normal for Ann Arbor,” she said with a shrug. She’s seen it twice now, both times during a thaw. It was hopping around in an area where the water was two or three inches deep on the frozen ground, “like it was hunting or something.” When I assured her a back yard eagle is not the norm in Ann Arbor, she decided to work this one into the listing.
Our friend Pat had her own large-bird surprise this winter. Looking out at the back yard, she spied a great horned owl perched on a snowy branch. She and Len hadn’t seen or heard the owl prior to that. But great horned owls run about two feet high and this was daytime. Pat stands confident of the identification. “It was huge,” she said. After about ten minutes of checking out the yard, the owl gave a big swoop and flew away. Pat still marvels at it. “It was the size of a blimp.”
Flowers have surprised me this winter, both wild and domestic. In December, I saw a dandelion blooming in a patch of grass not covered with snow. A few days later, two more popped up in other patches. Dandelions and snow don’t usually occur in close proximity. This Christmas, my sister Carol sent us a couple amaryllises, and they’ve been growing with dispatch. They’re in riotous full bloom now, with twelve enormous red flowers at once and more on the way. All this from two bulbs. Wow.
Carol has had some surprise sightings, too, this winter. In the crabtree by her kitchen window, she discovered two pine grosbeaks. She’d seen them before in other locales, so she knew what the robin-sized, red-and-black birds were. But she’d never seen them where she lives—upper Lower Peninsula, or Upper Lower as we like to say. They were a gorgeous treat.
As Carol and Paul walk around home with their English cocker, they’ve been seeing grouse prints in the snow. Grouse use snow as insulation and cover, to keep themselves warm and out of sight of predators. When Carol and Paul come across grouse prints, they say, “Okay, Juni, where’s the bird?” Which is Juni’s cue to enter a state of frenzy, searching for the scent. “And often,” Carol says, “she finds the bird, which blasts up out of the snow,” making everyone’s heart beat faster.
Carol and Paul have also been surprised lately by signs there are red foxes in the vicinity. They’ve found fox tracks in the snow and sand, and excavations in areas that look suitable for dens. A fox even appeared in the yard recently. “It had climbed the steep bank up from the lake and crested the hill,” Carol said. “It swished its tail, looked north and south, and headed south.” And, no, she did not ask Juni where the fox was.
We’ve probably all seen photographs or videos of foxes hunting in snow. Stalking. Tilting their heads back and forth as they zero in on the sound of a mouse or vole under the snow. And pouncing headfirst into the snow after it. Well, Carol and Paul have faceplant prints in their yard. Lots of them. Carol says you can see the paw tracks and the spots where a fox has dived into the snow.”
You never know what surprises may present themselves on a winter’s day in Michigan.
25 February 2022