It’s early December and most of the waterfowl have left the area for open water. About the only things left are an occasional Mallard, the cold weather loving Hooded Mergansers and the Canada Geese.

I had just read Rick Marsi’s outdoor column in the newspaper (remember those?) about a possible avian visitor to our area this winter. Not even an hour later, I looked out at our bird feeders and I was amazed at what I saw! There was a whole flock of Evening Grosbeaks at the feeders hungrily gobbling up every bit of seed in the feeder!!!

They stayed around for the whole day. We filled the feeders four times that day!! It was a first for us, and we’re hoping they will stick around for a while. It’s time to order more seed!!

And then this past Saturday I was able to sneak out for a wander around Brick Pond in Owego. I always try to finish up the year with one last trip to one of my favorite spots and Brick Pond has been on my favorite list all year. Anyhow, ice was covering about 95% of the pond and I figured seeing ducks was out of the question. But I took a good long wander to see if the otters were still in the area and also to shake the cabin fever that comes whenever I can’t get out to shoot. I idin’t see anything interesting until I was almost back at the car. The West end of the pond flows over the edge and eventually empties into the Susquehanna river. Where the water flows over the berm there was a small patch of open water and that is where I saw two small Muskrats. The way the Sun was situated they were looking right into the Sun when they were looking in my direction. So they really couldn’t see me and I was able to get a few cute pics of them.

In a few days the ice will cover the entire pond and life will slow down at the pond, at least on the surface. All in all it was a great year for the two of us photographically. We can’t wait to see what the new year brings us! More later…..