The weather continues to be “variable”. Recently, there was rain on top of an inch of snow. Visibility wasn’t great and it was damp when you were out on the lake. Most people didn’t spend much time in the drizzle before heading inside. Then, there was wind. Not just a breeze, real wind. On top of Mt. Washington, the wind reached 171 mph on the 25th! Sustained winds were well over 100 mph. On the lake, the winds were lighter but were gusting to 50 mph or so. There wasn’t any drifting snow because there was no fluffy snow to blow around. Now, the lake has a hard surface with a crunchy inch or so of snow on top. The temperature also dropped into the teens so winds gusting to 50 mph made it feel COLD. The ice hasn’t melted much if at all so ice out won’t happen any time soon.
Still, there are places where you can see old tracks frozen into the ice.
In other places, sheltered from the wind, fox tracks are seen going to investigate what is going on around a rock. One question, that I often have is how many tracks can one fox (or any other animal) make in a lifetime……
The eagles are present on the lake. Ice fishing activities provide food either by people leaving fish they don’t want out on the ice when they leave or by leaving fish heads behind that they didn’t want to take home. I talked with one person who made a huge mistake of leaving a large fish out on the ice and went to another hole in the ice to deal with another fish and an eagle came down and stole the unattended fish. Well, eagles have to eat, too. The eagles will probably nest in the next few weeks so we may have eagle chicks to watch in the Summer.
Remember that the Ice Out guessing ends at 11:59 PM on March 3rd.