This uprooted tree is one of many moved by the flooding river.
Ellie enjoys mucking around in the water front.
The flood plain is finally turning green!
The rushing river has scoured the woodlands clean. We look forward to visiting when it is just a touch warmer.
Our river is gearing up for spring. The trees are beginning to show buds.
I don't understand the greenness of the water. Is it reflecting greenery we just don't see?
Must be. A most welcome color, green.
After all, ochre is the dominant neutral right now. This stump got a bit of a makeover this winter. One would almost guess a bear tore it open.
And Ellie finally took her first swim of the season. She didn't linger in the water long enough for me to frame a shot. In. Out, pretty damned quick. A good, satisfying shake.
We have the sort of midwinter days that allow us to stay out long enough for plenty of exercise, but everything looks wintry. Foster Island is still snow covered, but the Chemung is flowing. For Ellie it is a time to check out tracks and scent something in the air.
Funny dog! She like the doggies' tracks as much as if they were deer's. These two shot were from the mouth of Hoffman Creek, completely bereft of all animal wildlife.
The river isn't ice-clogged, but many of the "bergs" are still extant. Double click the picture and check out the river in the upper left. 
This is the Grove Street Fishing Access Site on the Chemung River, February 21, 2009.
This is a feeder creek, with the huge ice floes positively back up into it. No way are these from the feeder creek itself, I don't think.
These two gulls are visiting right on the river channel itself. I was very tempted to walk out on the river with Ellie, but, because there is so much flowing water, decided against it.
Just downriver from Elmira the water is completely free. The birds are congregating there, these days. We saw ducks, geese, crows, hawks, and even a harrier. Never saw one of those before, so it will be weeks and maybe months before I ever get a shot of those speed demons.
No human or heavy equipment piled all this ice...
Some of it is dirty and in nasty, gritty slabs along the river front, while other chunks glow an ethereal blue. Double click and get a closeup.
Ellie is just tiny next to these stranded floes. She easily walks out on them, coming back to my whistle. I can hardly walk on land right now; Foster Island is slowly flooding over.
Right in downtown are some new pieces of driftwood, making lovely patterns and colors. Too bad this trunk is attacked to a huge, stripped log.
They all are, and are huge just in themselves. Wish I could drive the Tracker down there to haul a few out for the property. 
A rare view of the buildings at Roricks Glen. Too bad we can't have her back in her old glory. But not only did time move on, but so did the Chemung. The structure rising out of the water used to support the bridge that took merrymakers to the old park.
