originally published in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News January 20-21, 2007
By Judith L. Brown
Like Ludwig Bemelmans’s Madeline, I am someone who “loves winter, snow and ice.” To my dismay, I was out of town each time it snowed in November and December. Then the weather returned to the balmy 30s and 40s, and I was afraid I had missed winter for this year.
So, since this most recent cold snap has hit, I have been happily lacing up my heavy winter boots, wrapping a warm scarf round my neck and chin, and trudging over to the University of Idaho Arboretum to revel in the beauties of the season. It has indeed been beautiful there, very quiet but with lots to see if you happen to be looking in the right places at the right times.
I sometimes wonder where the herons go when there is an extended cold snap and the ponds are completely frozen over, as they have been lately. Are they able to go for long periods of time without food? Often, however, there is still open water here and there along the stream that wanders down the middle of the arboretum hollow, connecting the two big ponds and then continuing on down to the xeriscape garden way at the arboretum’s southern end. I suspect that if there are any herons in the arboretum, they would be found in some patch of open water.
With that thought in mind, I walked one recent morning to the middle of the boardwalk across the top of the more southern of the two big ponds and stopped there to peer upstream, toward the northern pond. This section of the stream between the two ponds is bordered with Japanese plantings. To me, the grasses, bamboos and Japanese maples are as beautiful in winter, covered with frost and snow, as they are in summer.
This day, as I had guessed, the stream through here was still open and flowing. As far as I could tell, however, there were no herons or mallard ducks — or any other signs of animal life — to be seen.
I turned away to continue my walk — and out of the corner of my eye caught the slightest of movements. And then another. There was a heron up there, near where the magenta-colored water lilies bloom in the summer. The dark gray of the feathers on the heron’s back and folded wings matched perfectly the dark gray of the basalt chunks edging the stream, and it was perfectly camouflaged. I never would have spotted it if it had not moved just then.
Another good place to look on cold winter mornings is up. The sun rises late these days, and when its rays first come over the arboretum’s eastern ridge they strike first the uppermost branches of the trees, and the birds know that this is where the day’s first warmth is to be found. High in the bare branches of lindens, ashes and oaks you can often see robins, fluffed up to twice their usual size, and sometimes a flicker or two. And cedar waxwings. I especially enjoy the cedar waxwings.
Every year, sometime around mid-winter, the cedar waxwings swoop down on the mountain ashes and feast on their berries. This always happens suddenly one day, after there have been numerous hard frosts. I wonder if repeated freezing and thawing makes the berries sweeter — or if perhaps they begin to ferment.
There’s a huge European mountain ash on the arboretum’s western side, midway between the two big ponds, that was chock-full of berries a month ago. At some point, the cedar waxwings must have feasted upon it, because now there are only a few berries left.
One morning as I approached this mountain ash, I could see that there were a couple of cedar waxwings high in its branches, in the sunshine. They were high enough up in the tree that the sun’s low rays were illuminating them from below. I stopped to admire the birds. The pure white feathers of their underbellies, edged with sulfurous yellow feathers around the legs, and the splashes of red on some of the otherwise gray wing feathers were stunning.
One bird in particular was perched on a branch right next to a cluster of remaining berries. Occasionally and ever so casually, it would turn its head and pluck a plump berry. It looked like a fine way to laze away a cold but sunny winter morning.
* Judith L. Brown is an economist and director of the Idaho Center on Budget and Tax Policy. She lives in Moscow with her family and can be reached at jlbrown@turbonet.com.