…that I wait to see.

As I write, the weather is changing in western Pennsylvania.  After an all day southerly rain the wind has shifted and is gusting from the west.  We’ll have snow showers tonight and lake effect snow up north.

I want to see tundra swans.   

I hope they’ve advanced ahead of the storm and are waiting at Lake Arthur.  If they’re there they’ll stay the night during this bad weather. 

Maybe I’ll see them tomorrow.  It’s the only day I can go looking for them. 

I hope I find a flock, not just one or two.  I hope to see them fly.  I hope they land on the lake while gentle snow falls around them.  I hope to see them as beautifully as Steve Gosser did when he took this picture. 

I’ll just have to wait and see.  I’ll tell you tomorrow.

Sunday, November 16:   

I saw them! 

But first I heard them – a flock of 94 tundra swans in a huge V overhead.  Later, another flock passed by but I was too absorbed in the swans on the lake to jump up and look. 

It was nearly everything I hoped.  I sat quietly and watched 11 of them, two families traveling together – one with three youngsters, the other with four.  The adults kept a watchful eye.  Snow fell gently.  I sat until I was too cold to stay any longer. 

Good weather for swans.

(photo by Steve Gosser)