A Brisk Riverside Ramble

A bright beautiful day today, but ooh, that wind!  Ear-piercing, nose-numbing, cheeks-freezing wind.  I really hate wind in the winter.  But I'd been house-bound for two days and I had to get out, so I drove to the end of Potter Road in Moreau and made my way down to the Hudson through the woods.  Here, there is often some shelter from wind, thanks to mountains rising to the south and west, and it's almost always quiet in the woods.  There was a brisk wind whipping down the course of the open river, but the water out there lay still as glass under a sheet of ice from shore to shore.

Last time I was here, I found the cocoon of a Cecropia Moth lashed to a twig of a Black Tupelo, and I was glad to see it was still hanging there.   Today, backlit as it was by the sun, I could see that the larva was still snug inside its winter wrapper.  It seems hard to believe that that packet of flimsy tissue could keep a living thing safe through the bitter cold, but I guess it must.  Does anyone know if I could break off that twig and bring the cocoon home to place outside my kitchen window, so I could watch it emerge in the spring?  Or should I leave it where its caterpillar chose to place it?

There is some snow in the woods along the river here, but it's icy and pocked by having been melted, rained on, and then refrozen.  I couldn't find any animal tracks except those of deer, the only animal heavy enough to break through the hard crust. It really is amazing to see the variety of tracks criss-crossing this woods when the snow is fresh:  otter, mink, fisher, coyote, fox, squirrels (red and gray), turkey, deer, rabbits, mice, voles and shrews, plus wingprints of ravens and eagles as they land on the frozen bays.  You'd never guess, without those tracks as evidence, that this woods is so well-populated by all these creatures.  Rare indeed is the moment when you actually lay eyes upon them.  I thought for just an instant today, that I'd caught a glimpse of a large owl sitting at the base of a tree.  But nope, just some peeling bark with two dots of well-placed fungus.