During the cold months, this column will keep track of happenings on and around the Delaware River, from snowstorms to ice and eagles.

The Christmas storm. Just below Skinners Falls the elevation at our river terrace is 725 feet above sea level. Maybe that’s the reason I recorded 19 inches of snow on Christmas Day, while friends near Galilee and Abrahamsville measured 26 inches. Both locations are north of Milanville, and 500-600 feet higher.

The snow at Milanville was light and generally powdery. By trapping it in a four-inch (diameter) cylinder, and melting and pouring the liquid into a calibrated measuring tube, I discovered the “water equivalent” of our Christmas snow. Each 9.5 inches of this snow produced an inch of water, a ratio of 9.5/1.

Although “powdery” snows at my place frequently have ratios of 12/1, back in November a very “wet” one logged a 5/1 ratio.

Fifteen eagles. Driving across the bridge to Narrowsburg on Christmas Eve, I spotted several eagles on ice floes below the bridge and others soaring overhead. During an hour at the observation deck I counted 15 birds—perching and soaring, or gliding onto the ice where an adult bird had carried a large fish.

The result was squabbles, and an attempt by the “owner” to carry the fish to safety, only to lose it in mid-air and to watch it plummet into the river.

Benjamin Franklin probably witnessed similar antics at the Philadelphia waterfront, prompting him to deride eagles as “scavengers,” unfit to be symbols of our new republic.

Had the Narrowsburg bird secured its fish and borne it to a safe perch as powerfully as the eagles on our currency grasp arrows and olive branches, I think Franklin would have approved.

[River Talk welcomes back originator Ed Wesley. A monthly column by Connie Mertz will commence on January 23.]