On the Road: Along the Bow |
There was frost along the river right where I’d hoped it would be.
It wasn’t quite as thick as I had anticipated but it was there, coating the bare branches and grass close to the steaming water and catching the thin glow of the morning sun. The river itself was running full of slushy ice that was forming shelves along the banks where geese sat, some preening, others sleeping with their feathers nearly as frosty as the branches along the shore.
The last time I’d been down to this spot it had still been autumn. The yellow leaves had been fading toward brown but the river was flowing ice-free. There were birds there, too, robins that hadn’t yet flown south, even a couple of tiny warblers. The usual ducks and geese were on the water but they were roosting in different places.
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Now, with the ice giving them more places to park, they were mostly staying put. Mallards and goldeneyes flew up and down the river, buzzing the geese on the water as they blasted by, but they were short flights. The goldeneyes, especially, flew just a couple of hundred metres before dropping onto the slushy flow and letting the current take them back downstream again as they dove to the bottom to forage.
The Bow River never really freezes over, at least here where the water runs fast and is warmed by the city’s needs. It does get slushy, like it is today, but its velocity and volume keep it flowing. And that open water makes it a haven for all kinds of wildlife.
Like the bald eagle I found just downstream of the city.
There are a surprising number of eagles that spend the winter here, mostly because of easy access to prey. With all those ducks and geese living year-round on the water, the eagles don’t have to work very hard for a meal. They just pick a perch where they can watch........