In February and the first week of March, it was looking like Ice Out might be early, now, maybe not. After warm sunny days, March has delivered colder weather and 10 inches of heavy snow. The places with open water have mostly refrozen and with the snow layer, you don’t know where the ice is thick or thin. It is probably over a foot thick everywhere other than near the places that melted but taking self rescue devices if you go out is a very good idea. Another snow storm is forecast for the 13th…….. And the result was 20 inches of snow. Ice out won’t be coming any time soon.
This melting was around Cate Island and there was a large area around the sandbar on Stamp Act that was open. If the water was deeper, you could have jumped off the rock. Even birds were starting to think it was Spring and I hope they didn’t make a fatal mistake. This Redwinged Blackbird may have been a bit overconfident…..
Along the shore, melting of the snow had occurred although the ice was thick along the shore so it was safe (oh, and if you fall through a hole into 3 foot deep water it is just cold and wet, not terribly dangerous).
The first picture was taken on March 3rd, the second on Marcy 6th. On March 9th, it looked like this:
The 10 inches of snow was heavy and sticky, not pleasant for skiing. It has been cold enough at night now so that it is now a bit more icy so it is actually much nicer skiing.
Below is a picture of some of the places near Cate Island and between Stamp Act and Cate that are free of ice. These are obvious places not to go. Other places are not so obvious.
One last note is that the Mr. and Mrs. Eagle have been around since January and were seen standing on the nest and around the nest recently. This meant that they weren’t “brooding” an egg.This is a very poor picture but there appears to be a white eagle head in the middle of the nest meaning that an eagle is sitting on an egg or two. Hope the pair can keep the egg(s) warm in all the snow. Eagles in this area lay eggs around this time so all seems to be normal.
