They look like they’ve just arrived from someplace warmer, a small group of tourists looking hopefully around for accommodations.

Then there’s this one, growing in a tiny stream. Bloom where you’re planted.

We enjoyed the gorgeous glen on a sunny day. The joyous spring sound of rushing water was everywhere.

Wet-loving plants and mosses adorned the shale walls and dead trees.

I was taken with the sense of heights as we walked down the streambed. Everywhere, the steep banks invited us to look upward toward the sun.

The contrast between light and dimness caught my attention. So did the contrast between beauty and violence.  You can’t get a stream picture that doesn’t include trees fallen down steep banks, broken and rotting — or great stones tumbled who knows how far by the water at its strongest.

Someone had created a space for humans along one part of the bank.

I, along with my daughters, joined in. We left our names there beside a growing number of others.

The leaves are nowhere near their peak, but that’s not to say there isn’t plenty of fall color. The light has that special fall look, too — somehow brighter and more merciless. I’m not sure why that word comes to mind, but it does.

It makes for more brilliant reflections on water, where it’s hard to tell where the real ends and the reflection begins.

We enjoyed a sunbathed walk yesterday along paths that invited reflection of a different kind.

It’s always amazing to me when the eye falls on something as tiny as this toad among the heights and colors of the forest.

So many places for little things to hide….

…and the animals are taking on their winter colors. This young deer blended in so well it didn’t even bother to run away.

We walked a little further and met another. They were both from this spring’s batch of fawns, I’m guessing, and they were very unwary.

This one walked up to us, curious and utterly innocent.

It came within 8 feet to check us out.

Finally it figured out that we weren’t familiar or promising, and bounded away down the trail.

I’ve never been approached that closely by a deer before. Hopefully this youngster wouldn’t be so slow to react to a coyote!

It was a lovely day for a walk, and this encounter was definitely a highlight.

Normally, I don’t take walks in the evening. I was glad my husband was with me on this one, because the woods had a certain ancient, waiting feeling about them — like the forests you encounter in books like those of Tolkien or Susanna Clarke. The only birds singing were hermit thrushes. They seemed to be stationed at intervals along the way, just frequently enough that one was always sending out its silvery, solitary song.

These two are photos of a veery — more often heard than seen!

This is a favorite picnic spot. I was able to get in close for the first time the other day; it’s been a steep and icy descent until now.

Another welcome sign of spring: water. Most of these streams have been silent, but now the woods are full of the sound of rushing water. It corresponds to the freedom I feel as winter releases its grip.

Always I am reminded that we are only the most recent of a long line of visitors here.

The woods were full of them today: soft, high-pitched peepings and flashes of bark-colored movement. There’s one on this tree. See it? It’s a brown creeper.

I love these tiny birds with their amazing protective coloration.

I have no idea how many there were; I saw one at a time. But they seemed to cover a wide area. There must have been quite a few.

I watched them hop up the trunks, checking under each flake of bark or lichen for insects.

They would hop to the top, then drop back down to the base and start back up again.

For them, the wood full of trees must have been an absolute delight — kind of like I’d feel in a chocolate factory acres wide.

They are always a treat to see, and seeing them feels like an accomplishment — so tiny, quick, and camouflaged.