To celebrate the sun’s return from long vacation, we took a walk at a nearby marsh today. Most of the snow has melted, and I’m convinced at least some of the birds are confused. They’re certainly vocal — I heard a titmouse belting out his piercing call on my neighborhood walk this morning, and yesterday there was a goldfinch in the tip-top of a tree, singing his heart out.

Today I saw something a little more down to earth. We’ve probably all heard the illustration about the frog boiled alive in a science experiment as the heat was turned up so slowly the frog didn’t feel it happening. But this is the first time I ever saw a frog sunbathing on ice.

The only birds we saw in the woods were crows and one downy woodpecker. There was a red-tail in the distance, and he treated us to a few wild shrieks as he flew over. Most of the beauties were small things — bursts of color in the predominantly gray-brown drabness of the woods.

I read somewhere that these berries are a last resort food for deer. If I remember correctly from last year, they won’t last much longer before shriveling and disappearing.

The woods near the marsh have a primeval feel — lots and lots of dead trees, many of them fallen and covered with moss. The varieties of moss really stand out this time of year — so rich looking and so many different textures and shades of green.

  It sounds morbid to say it, but moss always strikes me as a beautiful window dressing for decay. These trees have surrendered — the girls love to climb in among them. They call it the carpet store.

And these are making their slow descent.

I stood beneath these for awhile, listening to what I thought at first might be a woodpecker, but what turned out to be simply the creaking and rubbing of this tangle of tree trunks. Then I called the girls over and asked them to listen. “A woodpecker!” Younger Daughter immediately exclaimed. It made me feel better.

This tree had ferns between its toes.

The marsh has a decrepit bird blind that we always walk out on — with some fear and trembling. It’s pretty old, and I think it’s been flooded numerous times. One of these days we may discover its limitations.

The view is worth it — beautiful in a lonely kind of way.

In warmer seasons we’ve seen green herons, great blue ones, blue-winged teal, wood ducks, mallards. There are muskrat lodges all over the place as well.

That’s about all. It was wonderful to feast our eyes and ears, and to feel released into the wide world.

On the way home we saw several red-tails. I’m not above stopping along a busy road to admire these fierce, regal birds.