I had a somewhat similar experience. I went with my wife and daughter hiking in the Cascades on Sunday. We went to Mirror Lake which is about halfway between Snoqualmie Pass and Stampede Pass along the Cascade crest. Slightly below Mirror Lake is Cottonwood Lake, a shallow lake of perhaps 20 acres. It was completely frozen with new smooth ice. The ice was fairly thick. You could easily walk several yards out on it and there was no give at all (and good sliding). Possibly you could have walked all the way across but it didn't look quite as thick further out. On our way in, the lake would occasionally make funny gurgling noises like the blub blub sound of a full bottle turned over. I figured it was giant air bubbles blubbing in to replace the water that came out of the outlet stream. When we came back an hour or so later (right around the time of the earthquake), the gurgling sound was nearly constant and there was a bit of slope to the ice near the edge and cracks right around the edge. It was like a souffl? that had fallen when cooled. When we stepped on the ice it didn't feel secure anymore though I'm sure it had not melted any.
We had no idea there was an earthquake till we heard it on the news on Monday.
By the way there were hardly any birds: a flock of chestnut-backed chickadees and one raven. I could hear a few crossbills but I didn't see any.

Jim Elder
ICOM America, Inc.
2380 116th Ave. NE
Bellevue, WA 98004
425-450-6035
jime at icomamerica.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stan Kostka [mailto:lynnandstan at earthlink.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 7:26 AM
> To: tweeters
> Subject: Birding the earthquake
>
> Sunday November 3 2002, beautiful clear sunny afternoon, following
> several nights well below freezing here in the Cascade foothills. After
> lunch, Im on the porch drinking tea, enjoying a very quiet windless
> moment, watching a song sparrow flitting around the edge of the thin
> ice layer on the pond. I hear a noise to my left, kind of a sharp,
> short creaking sound, and thinking birds, my mind says "avian alarm
> call" and I look left, but see no bird, nothing. I wait and watch.
> All is quiet again. Suddenly within seconds of hearing that first
> noise, I hear it again, and then again, from there, directly in front of
> me, but again, no bird, no apparent movement, nothing. Then, something
> quite remarkable happened. The ice, along with the water level at the
> south end of this small ornamental pond ( 16 feet wide, 42 feet long, 6
> feet deep), suddenly began to drop, the rapidly changing water level
> clearly displayed by the rising wet line on the rocks at the waters
> edge . "Oh my gosh", I thought, "the pond has sprung a leak." Then I
> hear something to the north, and turn eyes right. Along the northern
> edge, the ice, along with the water level is rising, with small flows
> of water forcing themselves up through cracks in the ice along the rocky
> edge. The ice creaks and cracks as the water gently churns up, levels
> off, and then begins to subside. Simultaneously the water and ice on
> the south end begins to rise, and the entire icy surface of the pond is
> rocking gently back and forth, up on one end, down on the other, but
> relatively unchanging at the midpoint. I watch transfixed, having
> noticed absolutely no other movement that would indicate earthquake. I
> call to Lynn who is working in the garden nearby, "Look at the pond,
> QUICK !" , and together we watch, wondering what could be happening.
> Pieces of floating deadwood (placed there for dragonflies), are gently
> bumping back and forth against the ice, as the rocking begins to
> diminish. It is as if we were standing at the edge of a large quiet
> lake, and some silent waves, from an unseen distant ship had just lapped
> up on shore. As quickly as it began, it ended. I was thrilled. It was
> as if this small slumbering pond had just turned over, and gone to sleep
> for the winter. Within several minutes, all was again quiet, and still ,
> except for the song sparrow, who went back to patrolling the edge of the
> ice.
>
> Stan Kostka
> lynnandstan at earthlink.net
> Arlington