A Walk in the Wintry Wind

It seemed like a great day for tracking: not too cold, some occasional sun, and new snow the night before last.  But ooh!  What a cruel wind!  It wormed down into my ears and clawed its way up my parka.  And worst of all, it knocked down all those heaps of snow that had coated every bough and twig, pocking the forest floor until it looked like cottage cheese.  Or as if all the forest creatures had hopped about on pogo sticks.  If there were tracks through the woods today, they were very well camouflaged.  Out on the ice by the river, whatever faint trails I found were filled in with blowing snow.  Hard to tell who made them.  Oh well.  Lots of other wonders await in the woods, even on cold windy days.  

For example, I wonder what these berries are.  I'd say they were winterberries with not just their guts but also their color sucked out of them.  Just a month or so ago they were a brilliant red and nothing would eat them.  As winter went on, either the freezing made them sweeter or someone grew desperately hungry.

Here's something red: the topmost twigs of a highbush blueberry bush.  I'd never noticed this rosy color on blueberry twigs before, although I had seen their buds as red as rubies.  And speaking of buds, I found some on flowering dogwood:  they look like little turnips.

Now for something a little green, a tree just covered with this fungus.  I wonder if the green color could be an algal or mossy growth on top of the fungus?  I noticed teensy tiny trumpets like some kind of lichen napping the tops of some. (You can't see that in this photo.) 

I found lots of other woody and seedy stuff that's fun to try to identify in winter:  alder cones and buttonbush balls, stems of meadowsweet, sneezeweed, aster.   And here's a little sweet gale sprig.  In spring it sprouts puffs of bright pink flowers, then leaves as fragrant as incense.  For the moment it's just bare twigs and buds.  But aren't they really pretty? (Be sure to click on this photo to see these buds up close.)