They appeared at the beginning of April, when frogs were already starting to teem in the stagnant ponds. The dusk had been mild, wisps of cloud speeding southward. The weather turned in the night.
In the morning almost a hundred of them had gathered. In the gray sleet they looked like remnants of snow, they could barely be told apart from the patches of dirty white that lingered in ditches and under bushes. They stood motionless, given away only by the red of their bills and legs. Moisture was freezing on the bare branches. The tiniest blade of grass was encased in a little sheath of ice. From time to time one of the birds would spread its wings. I couldn’t hear it, but the awkward flapping must have been accompanied by a crunching sound. The hardiest of them wandered toward puddles. They shuffled about on the ice. The half-asleep frogs were less than an inch away.
By evening nothing had changed. The wind brought alternating waves of snow and drizzle.
The next day it was even colder. That kind of wind in winter always brings a snowstorm. From time to time the towering ring of clouds cracked open from end to end, and for a moment there appeared blue sky or a glint of sun; then darkness set in again.
The strongest ones tried to fly, making a long run-up and an unnaturally quick ascent into the wind, then dropped immediately, like failed paper airplanes. When the gale eased a little, they would shift a couple hundred yards farther on, then settle amid equally frozen pools of water. And though there were alder thickets close by, not one of them took shelter there.
At dawn on the third day the wind died down and the sun came out. I didn’t see them fly away. One was left behind. It looked like an overturned plaything.