Winter's coming to an end

Waxwing (RSPB image)

It rained on the melting snow and ice last week and now there's a freeze again so that the Rideau River has a smooth sheen. The "keys" (blocks of ice in the shape of a keystone) cut by the icebreaking crews stick out of it, some of them deformed by the thaw, and the amphibious excavator is working slowly upstream past New Edinburgh towards Vanier. The sky is bright.

This was a sight worth seeing yesterday: waxwings, a woodpecker, a chickadee, several migrating fieldfares and an American robin, all foraging in the trees and bushes between St. Patrick Street and the Rideau River.

Don told me yesterday that he'd seen geese flying north.