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JANUARY THAW (REVISITED): It was the longest thaw I can remember, running from Monday, 1/18, when the thermometer hit 50 degrees, until Saturday 1/30. During this spell we had a couple of inches of rain that broke up ice on the Delaware River, leaving the main channel clean as a whistle.

High temperatures over the 12 days averaged about 40 degrees and low temperatures an amazing 29 degrees, "amazing" for January, that is.

EAGLES: The ice break-up on the Delaware River has made things a lot simpler for wintering eagles. No longer constrained to seek rifts immune to ice formation, they are freed to hunt and fish anywhere they choose.

One result has been the scattering of a large eagle population that gathered near Narrowsburg in early January. Where the river bends to the left, about a half mile below the Narrowsburg bridge, is a long, shallow riffle where inexperienced summer canoeists scrape bottom. The combination of open, shallow water, and good perching trees along both shores attracted a large group of eagles for over a week.

Because some of these birds often perched near Route 652, and others across the river along the Narrowsburg flats, it was easy to observe and count them, especially on gray days when the ice was glare free. After a snowstorm on 1/14, friends and I the next afternoon counted 14 eagles shuttling back and forth between perches at the flats and in a clump of trees near Route 652.

Until the thaw, it was customary to see an eagle glide low over the riffle to snatch a small fish, or to rest on an ice shelf, or bathe in a shallow cove. Readers who haven’t observed groups of eagles would have found this Narrowsburg contingent amusing, living arguments for Benjamin Franklin’s observation that the eagle is a shameless "scavenger."

No sooner had one bird captured a fish than a crowd gathered, sometimes in the air to jar loose the fish and send it tumbling. If one eagle settled onto the ice with a fish, others glided low over its head or landed nearby. They reminded me of my chickens when one of them finds a worm or small frog — the finder seldom enjoys a peaceful meal.

Over the last two weeks I haven’t found even a straggler from this eagle company at the eddy. Pursuit of their "daily bread," with its attendant rituals and squabbles, appears to have dispersed the eagles to other shores and to livelier fishing holes.

RIVER ICE: Because of a warm autumn, our initial frazil ice formed in late December, its first slushy disks rafting down the Delaware River on Christmas Eve. It soon consolidated with ice congealing in quiet water, to girdle the Narrowsburg Eddy and many river channels with thick plates. It also prompted our local ducks and a few remaining geese to search for open water.

But as anyone driving near the river will observe, the main effect, after its break up, has been to dramatically transform the architecture of our shorelines. On 1/18, tons of ice debris were squeezed against riverbanks and dumped onto floodplain islands, where it still rests.

About a week later I measured a dozen huge ice-blocks in a jumble of debris that had docked on a PA Fish Commission landing just below Narrowsburg. Their average thickness was about nine inches, but several blocks were thirteen inches thick, which is pretty remarkable. In three and a half short weeks, between Christmas Eve and its break-up on 1/18, the ice consolidated and hardened into blocks that might have pleased old time ice cutters.



Then, on February 1, after two nights of single digit temperatures, winter tried a comeback. Rafts of frazil ice again jammed channels above the Narrowsburg bridge, and ice shelves reappeared in calm eddies. But on 2/2, Groundhog Day, a warm rain, as if on cue, swelled the river and carried away the newly minted ice.

I urge readers who visit the river to examine the remaining ice blocks, still substantial, though pared down by three weeks of melting. The PA Fish Commisson landing, off Route 652 below Narrowsburg, is a good place to check this out.