Signs of the Season

Believe it or not, TV commercials are not the only way to tell what time of the year it is.

Though (today only!) I think the number of exclamatory comments goes up!! as the year winds down!!!! (Get yours now! I seem to be using more! than!! my!!! fair!!!! share!!!!!)

Today I found myself hunting down a pair of binoculars to check out the birds sitting around on the ice floes. I was reasonably sure they were seagulls, whose residence is unremarkable at most times of the year. This morning, their presence was fascinating, and not just because of the usual Monday morning procrastination.

As winter approaches, fewer animals are out and about. We haven't seen the muskrat in a couple of weeks. Deer still pass through but they don't hang around as much, now that the temperature has dropped below freezing. The bear has been conspicuously absent, too.

In winter, chickadees and nuthatches, jays (blue and gray) (or grey), woodpeckers (downy, hairy, and pileated) and seagulls make up most of our company. Although even the gulls are scarce. All of these birds get pushed to "ho-hum" status in the spring, when first geese and ducks, and then wigeons, teals, herons, sandpipery things, cormorants, eagles, and finally loons come to play in the bay.

But me, I know winter is coming. I can look at the thermometer and see that at 8 a.m. today it was 12 F. I can look out the window and note that the colo(u)r palette has changed to grayish blue and pale orange-tan-brown. Or I can watch my own response to something as ordinary as seagulls hanging out on the ice.

And yes, the fact of ice floes in the bay is another clue.

My larger point, if I must have one, is that this time of year doesn't have to be the season of sales and shopping and buying unless we want it to be.

I'm going outside to squint into the sun now -- because it lies so near the horizon all day at this time of year.