Woods
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One step forward, two steps back
We’ve had precipitation of various kinds since last time I posted, including snow. This is typical for spring in the northeast. Here are some shots from the most recent walk — over a week ago now. The lighting is rather severe, but finding beauty in overcast days is also part of living in the northeast…
Interestingly, when we tried to go for a walk on a sunny day last weekend, two local preserves were absolutely mobbed. Very unusual! We gave up, mainly because we had our (crazy) dog with us, but it was amazing to see so many people looking for outdoor things to do on a nice day during the coronavirus shutdown.
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Wood Between the Worlds
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Mixed bag
My daughters and I have been making trips, roughly a week apart, to a local preserve to watch its progress as spring unfolds. The gallery above shows some of the sights.
And really, it’s quite early yet. May is the time when ferns unfurl, wildflowers and warblers run riot, and leaves pop. But it feels amazing to be in the woods in these early days as ever-so-slightly, the green begins to make its inroads against the brown, gray and white of winter.
Yesterday I noticed something I didn’t photograph that was equally cheering: many people, out and about. Both in the woods, and in the car on the way home, I thought about the strangely mixed bag of stayhomesavelivessocialdistancingflattenthecurve during a pandemic…
One the one hand:
- economic loss
- social isolation
- severe illness, and death
- children missing school lunches, friends, stability, routine
- family tensions inflamed in close quarters
- anxiety
- too little toilet paper
- too many sweets
But on the other hand:
- dogs getting walked more
- people doing things together more
- a man and a young girl riding a tandem
- parents and young children walking the trails
- temporary technological substitutes for community & education
- books getting read
- time
I don’t want to do this forever. But for now, I can see some good things happening, even in the midst of crisis. Spring is unfurling in the woods, and looking around, it appears that perhaps a good many “Someday when I have time, I will _____” ideas are unfurling as well. Six feet apart is not that far.
I say this without minimizing the bad, but with thankfulness for the good that exists alongside it.
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Yellowthroats and Other Wonders
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Wildflowers
We took an afternoon walk yesterday to see how a familiar preserve looked in the sun. Here’s a new flower — with the not-so-catchy name “narrow-leaved blue-eyed grass”:
It’s only about a half an inch across, but it was neat to see a new adornment on the ground. Here’s a closer look:
A veery was singing in the distance, which my daughter tried without success to see. Oven birds, a house wren, robins and cardinals provided musical accompaniment. A few other flowers we saw:
Buttercups (I guess) 
Bluets 
Daisies There were mosses a-plenty…
As well as some favorite spots to think.
A couple of oven birds tried hard to lead us away from what must have been their nest site. It would have been amazing to see an oven bird nest, but we settled for watching the birds for a few minutes, then moving on to give them some peace.
Not only did we observe; we were observed:
On the whole it was a lovely stroll.
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Cloudy and green
Around here this spring, we have to accept the overcast as an almost constant state. But the temperature was pleasant and even a little sultry, so we ventured out.
A may apple in bloom Plants continue to develop even in wet conditions. This interrupted fern shows its fertile leaves.
A closer look My daughter noticed this clump with a bracken fern growing in the midst of another kind of fern. (Maybe a common polybody fern? I’m trying to learn them, but many look alike to me.)
A few more specimens. . .
“Moss” on a dead tree. Seen closely, it always looks like a whole community of pants. 
A wide variety grow along the bank of the stream, too. 
Dogwood It was very dim light, and the photos show the drabness. But somehow the greens look greener when it’s overcast. My pics don’t show it as much (partly because I’m still stuck with my cell phone camera), but one has a sense of the light emanating from the leaves instead of the sky.
See the frog? 
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Spring Marsh
It was in the 40s this morning, but the sun was inviting. We headed for a nearby marsh in search of spring warblers.
The May apples were just opening their “umbrellas,” and a riot of green shoots of all kinds reached for the sun. These ferns were fist-bumping!
Others stretched their fronds more tentatively. This one looks like it’s admiring its shadow.
We saw more than I was able to capture in photos. My camera doesn’t focus well when fully zoomed out, so I have only one semi-decent warbler picture. But we saw pileated woodpeckers and downies, red-winged blackbirds, mallards and geese, at least one flicker, and numerous yellow-rumped warblers like this one.
A bench in a strategic place allowed some time to reflect and listen.
It’s heartening to see the surge of life bursting out all over. Along with spring leaves and blooms, all the beautiful summer-dwellers are back: orioles, grosbeaks, hummingbirds. May is my favorite month, and by the end of it we’ll have seen an intricate tapestry of tiny wildflowers and ferns and mosses grow to carpet this landscape. The leaf canopy will thicken, softening some of the brightness and contrasts in the scene. I plan to savor and enjoy every phase.
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Chipmunks
These little guys are so fearful of being seen. If only they could be quieter, they’d have better success. But first it’s the chipping out of vocal warnings from their roosts, and then it’s the frantic scrabble of little claws on bark that gives them away.
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Salamander Season
We discovered yesterday that we’d completely missed a chapter of spring. It seems early, but there were lots of signs of the season advancing, including salamanders cruising about among the dead leaves in one of our favorite pools.
Eggs had already hatched into plump tadpoles.
Some frogs were floating about. This one’s trying to remain incognito, and she almost succeeded in getting stepped on.
There were various signatures of creatures who were out and about and carving their names on trees.
The wind had left its mark too. This tree had been split in two and turned into a drinking trough.
And this was one of many that had been plucked up by the roots.
We saw some kinglets, and a few geese squabbling endlessly over their own patch of pond. We also saw a new beaver lodge, and lots of signs of the beaver’s activity on trees along the bank:
It was sunny and mild, and the green was just starting to show in the landscape.
On the whole it was a thoroughly enjoyable walk! Even though our winter has been unusually mild, the sight of new growth always marks a welcome change.
A friend tells me this flower is called coltsfoot. It’s one of the earliest spots of color to be seen in the mud along the roadsides. -
Chipmunks or deer?
New Monarch 
Resting deer 
Water droplets 
Bracket fungus (also a nice shelf for a nutshell) 
Squirrel Nutkin 
Lichen-covered stump 
Weird yellow fungus 
Bracket fungus 
Fall garter snake 
“Not in my back yard!” 
Sassafrass 
Tiny toad 
Dragonfly 
White-throated sparrow “What would you say?” I asked my daughter on our way out of the woods. “Was this walk mostly about chipmunks or deer?”
“Chipmunks, probably,” she answered.
But three deer, resting and grazing, were the first things we saw — after the monarch mudskipping in the parking lot. Later, we heard the snorty scream of a deer warning call, followed by some banging sounds, and then a young buck running through the woods across the creek from us. Could he have been clashing antlers with another deer? Or did he get stuck in a tight spot somewhere? Strange. We back tracked to see if we could get another look at him, and though we did see him we didn’t get any pics. Still another young deer bid us goodbye as we left the woods, too. They were surely out and about.
The chipmunks were definitely impossible to ignore, however! They scampered everywhere and chirped till the woods rang with it, warning everyone that we were intruding. The little guy pictured in the log was close enough to his safety zone to indulge his curiosity about us somewhat before disappearing inside.
The other story, for me, was the busyness and color of the woods. It shows up especially in the stream/bridge pictures. It’s difficult to find a single area of the scene that isn’t already brimfull of other outlines. It reminds me of those art class exercises where you are instructed to fill every space with a different pattern.
Not a ton of color this fall — mostly yellows and rust colors. It’s been dry. But it’s enough to tint the sunlight, giving it a beautiful burnished glow before it hits the ground.
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Creekside
There is a creek that runs along the edge of the church grounds where our homeschool co-op meets. I used my free period today to sit in the colorful, multitextured world of the stream. I wasn’t feeling antisocial — just quiet. It was a lovely diversion in an otherwise busy day.
