[Blue cohosh]

Fertile spring emerged from the morning fog glistening with rain. Overnight the balance had shifted from brown to green. The tight bundles of blue cohosh relaxed and lightened to a grayish green. Hillocks were softly furred with patches of trout lily leaves. Ferns rose in fiddleheads and little arching rib cages. Skunk cabbage leaves have expanded to smother the flowers, while tree flowers are being overtaken by leaves in various hues.

Everywhere spring beauties were coiled up tight from the night, ready to open later in the day. The drooping trout lilies were only waiting for a break in the clouds. They burst into bloom, like festive little banana peels discarded throughout the forest. Trilliums gaped open, not quite in their glory.




[Trout lilies]

The soundscape was also maturing. Finally the strains of our flutist, the wood thrush, settled over the forest. Ovenbird song crashed through the underbrush. As I made my way next door, a black-throated green warbler declared, “zee zee zee zoo zeet!”

On a rainy morning, scattered droplets disturbed the trees and gray sky reflected in forest pools. Greenery glistened, mostly moss, clumps of grass, and patches of trout lily leaves. Splatters of white paint were revealed to be hepatica flowers bent against the rain. Suddenly the volume was turned up and the rain intensified, turning to little crystals that bounced off my jacket. It filled the soundscape. Distantly I heard random bird chatter and my mother-in-law’s generator running as it supplemented the hidden sun.

Today the woods whisper with warblers. They tumble about aspen canopies hung with drooping flowers. I walked back to the garden to check on my seedlings and found a brown thrasher hopping among a thick growth of young beeches. His species creates songs with mimicry and he muttered to himself, trying out new pick-up lines. When I left he had moved on to more mundane concerns. He churned through the leaf litter with his feet and beak in search of insects.

Morning settled in with a light frost that outlined green leaves on the ground and traced patterns on still pools. The branches above were far from still as birds indulged in the drama that is often superseded by the dance of survival other times of the year. A male brown-headed cowbird puffed up in display for the female next to him on a branch. She, unimpressed, kept sidling a little away. Nearby, an expectant robin father held vigil while the female hunkered down in her finished nest. They have little to fear from the nest parasitism of the cowbirds, since robins often remove offending eggs instead of incubating them. An ongoing yellow-bellied sapsucker dispute periodically erupted into a squeaky argument complete with slow chase. A quieter chase involved a silent hermit thrush being harassed down the driveway by his larger cousin, a robin. This thrush has farther to travel before he can carve out his own territory. In our woods the summer flutist will be the wood thrush.

Also in the canopy, the drama of tree reproduction proceeded with only visual fanfare.


[Aspen flowering]

Up and coming flowers:

[Blue cohosh]


[White trillium]


[Bloodroot]

Days ago I stepped out into the blue-gray thickness of twilight. Turkeys gobbled from beyond the stream. The drumming of scattered ruffed grouse sounded like the heartbeat of the forest, or possibly rival lawn mowers failing to start up. I suppose the obsession with lawns in some communities is a similar competition for status.

Robins began to chatter and a cardinal sang. Chickadees scolded and sang. The blaze of dawn climbed the horizon behind the spruce trees. The knocking displays of woodpeckers made the forest creak like an old house. A pileated woodpecker flew to a tree and backed down it with a jerky, bobbing motion. About chest height he hopped off, presumably to a nearby dead beech with extensive excavation curving down the trunk and fresh wood chips littering the base. Chickadees argued while a nuthatch peeped softly, disapprovingly. The chickadees followed each other like friendly cats, moving to nearby branches as if a chase wasn’t their purpose.


[Wild leeks]

Wild leeks are raising a flag to celebrate spring. New greenery has been a long time coming, with the snow cover clinging to the bitter, sunny end. Finally hepaticas are blooming, at first in pale, secretive clusters that multiplied and brightened overnight. Exotic coltsfoot dots the lawn like dwarf dandelions while purple crocuses stand bright and (relatively) tall in a bed with one little outlier beginning a lawn invasion. Minute fields of trout lily leaves have sprung up and tree buds are finally bursting into flowers.


[Hepatica]

A robin pair already has a nest under construction near the house. The other day I watched as the female flew up to the structure and moved around in the developing cup, using her body as a caliper. More phoebes have come after several days of silence, but I fear these will also reject our little compound. The old nest location at grandma’s house was on a wall above the first story roof, which is now accessible to her cats. I only hope they can find a site nearby this year.


[Robin nest, using zoom lens]

Yesterday a phoebe was checking out our woodshed. I heard his emphatic little song in the morning and then again in the evening. Bird song has settled down during the day, and the forest was quiet a few days ago when I grabbed my camera for a walk along the stream. Bird noises broke out erratically, calls and chipping. Snow lay everywhere, clinging to form under the bright sun. Water lay placid in the stream, with accents and edgings of ice. A bit of debris on my hat revealed itself to be a small, slow-moving insect with long wings.

We’re moving into the time of year when I step carefully in the forest. Perennial plants are emerging from their safe coverings of dirt, leaves, and snow. Skunk cabbage flowers* lined the stream where they were easy to spot. Others poked through moss and leaf litter, camouflaged until I was almost upon them. Once noticed, they gave a whimsy to the stream floodplain as colorful gnome hats which twisted and bowed. Their hues ranged from lemon yellow to wine red. They’re all so unique that I couldn’t bear to accidentally crush even one, which is not a sentiment shared by nature nor humanity in general.

*The structures are modified leaves with the actual flower head forming a ball within the hood.








Exposed flower head.