Walking with Tears in the Eyes

I will readily admit that Tammy and I have not been getting our "walk there agains" in as much as we probably should of lately.  There are a whole list of reasons.  Some of them are reasonably good and others are much less good.  It's just the way these things are sometimes.  But we did manage to take a short walk this past weekend at Sweet Marsh, near Tripoli.

It was one of those days where the weather looked much more pleasant than it felt.  That might explain why we... ok, mostly I... didn't quite prepare ourselves for the cold wind that hit us as we walked on the dike.  At least we brought the camera this time around.

Priorities... right?

We're in that time of year where it is easy to make a bad guess about how things are going to feel after you've been outside for a while.  To give you some idea, much of Sweet Marsh was open water prior to the most recent cold snap.  There wasn't much open water remaining when we took this walk.  My mind was taking visual clues of blue sky and sunshine and putting visions of a pleasant meander with my best friend.  I ignored the visual clue that was the reading on the thermometer.

The problem with some of the visual clues this time of year?  Well, there aren't any leaves to tell you there is a breeze and it takes much more wind to blow the naked branches of the trees and bushes around.  Even the rigid corpses of last year's grasses need a bit more wind to move them and to send a telegraph to my brain that the air is moving a bit.

I probably should have taken the hint from the Red-winged Blackbird that decided it didn't feel like singing OR scolding us as we walked past.  It probably didn't see us there because, like me, it had tears in its eyes.

The temps were on the colder side and the wind made it sharp enough that my eyes decided the best reaction was to fill with water.  That can make it difficult to see where a person is going.  And, I guess it makes it hard for Red-winged Blackbirds to know that there are humans near by that need to hear from them.  This is assuming, of course, that birds have tear ducts.

Canada Geese, on the other hand, don't need much of an excuse to make noise.  Perhaps they had a little shelter down by the water that we (and the Red-winged Blackbird) were not enjoying.  I did notice that there was some open water by the shore.  Or, more accurately, I saw water in front of me and pointed the camera at it.  It could have been my own tears providing the illusion that there was some unfrozen water over there.

Once I got the picture off the camera, I got my proof that there really was some open water.  That's a relief.

There was a duck mixed in with the geese, but I was too slow getting the camera ready.  Why?  Well, I did tell you I wasn't fully prepared, didn't I?  

Not having gloves means my hands got pretty cold.  Cold hands don't get lens caps off quickly and efficiently, dontcha know!  It also makes it harder to wipe the tears away from my eyes so I could see the things I might have wanted to take a picture of.

We did come across a pair of Sandhills that decided they wanted to stand on the dike in front of us.  They warned us off with their croaking calls.  But, being obstinate humans, we just stood there - letting both the cranes and the geese serenade us with their warnings.

There was some temptation to get the longer lens out, but that's for days when your hands aren't already a clumsy from the cold.  And, of course, there was no telling how long the cranes were going to tolerate us.  So, we made do with what we had.  After all, the only reason for taking the picture was to document the moment where we were told to turn back by a couple of large birds.

Eventually, the pair decided they'd had enough of us and they flew off, their calls echoing as they went.  We decided we had also had enough, so we turned back ourselves.  As we passed the Red-winged Blackbird's tree, we noticed (after I wiped more tears from my eyes and onto my clumsy, cold hands) that bird had also moved on.  It was probably berating itself for letting an opportunity to sing or scold humans get away from it.

That's ok.  I'm sure we'll come back and give that bird a second opportunity - and I'm sure it won't miss its chance this time around.