With light winds and brilliant sun forecast, I ventured out to Sam Smith today to wander along the shore. Ice everywhere! All the bays but one were frozen over and far off shore there are huge pans with large white clumps of snow and ice that look like mini-ice bergs. Lots of floating 'bergie bits' and incredible formations hanging off the rocky points. Whimbrel Point is iced in except for one big patch of open water in the bay where there were all sorts of the regular winter ducks - mostly Scaup and several White-winged Scoters. The 4 rocky little points that jut out on the SW side are spectacular with huge icicles hanging down and the most glorious sound coming from around the edges as the thin layers of ice are pushed ashore by the water motion and crack and shatter like glass, making tinkling sounds! It's worth the walk out to that side of the point but the footing was terrible even with icers on my shoes. The only 'land' birds I saw and heard were 3 Tree Sparrows and 1 forlorn Robin. No Snowy owls on the wharfs but lots of coyote tracks in the marina, and further towards the marina exit there is frozen 'pancake' ice in amazing patterns...........blue and white as the temperature is so cold.
