Late-Winter Beauty

I'm not sure if it's remnants of whatever ailed me for over a week last month, or simply loss of fitness from spending a week in bed, but I'm still finding a nap more appealing than a nature walk these afternoons.  Especially as the cold snowy weather continues. Hey, it's MARCH!  Time to go looking for our first flower of spring (Skunk Cabbage) and listening for the first calls of the Red-winged Blackbirds in the marsh. But the morning's temps were down near the single digits yesterday, and snow still lay thick everywhere.  And I might have headed back to my couch if my Facebook Memories had not shown me these next three photos of late-winter beauty still to be found, even when winter lingers.

The gracefully curving leaves of Sweet Fern (Comptonia peregrina) still hold their marvelous fragrance even though brittle and dry. The male catkins formed last fall and wait for warmer weather to fluff out with pollen.

The golden leaves of American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) are as translucent as tissue paper, lying atop the snow.

The gracefully arching flowerheads of Woolgrass (Scirpus cyperinus) remind me of the fireworks that resemble shooting stars.

 

Spurred by the memory of such late-winter beauty, I was glad I had agreed to meet my friend Sue for a short walk along the Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail this day. The packed trail made for easy walking, and the blue sky and a warming sun cast a springlike feel to the still-below-freezing air.

We had chosen this wetland site today in the hopes we might find some Skunk Cabbage spathes poking up through the snow.  And we also hoped we might hear the loud calls of early-returning Red-winged Blackbirds claiming their nesting sites in the marshes that line this trail.  But no, the air was perfectly silent of birdcalls, and most of the trailside stream was solidly covered with ice.  Even in the few patches of open water, we found no signs at all of any new plants. Some pretty filigree ice, but no Skunk Cabbage.

We did enjoy the stark beauty of last year's aster remnants, as lovely as ink-drawings against the white snow.

Some of the flower remnants intrigued us as to their identity. We could not figure this one out as to its  species, although it sure looked familiar.

The fluffy filaments of Virgin's Bower Clematis were easy to spot where their twining vines had wound through the branches of trailside shrubs.

We were surprised to find some fungi, like this Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) climbing a peeling birch trunk, still looking as firm and colorful as they did last fall.

I took a flash photo of the Turkey Tail to better show how colorful this fungus still remained.

Many small willows line the trail where it passes through open marsh. We searched the twigs, hoping to find some silky puffs emerging from the tight reddish bud scales.  No Pussy Willow catkins yet, but we did find many Shoot-tip Rose Galls at the ends of the twigs, papery growths resembling roses, caused by a tiny fly (Rhabdophaga rosaria) laying its eggs in a slit of the twig.

Many Speckled Alders also line the marsh-side trails, and I was truly surprised to find this fluffy clump of Woolly Alder Aphids.  I cannot believe these soft-bodied insects would still be sipping sap from the winter-brittle alder twigs, or that the insects themselves would not be frozen solid beneath all that waxy fluff.  How odd, though, to still look so fresh and furry after this long cold winter. These aphids usually produce a cloned generation of winged adults that fly off to mate and lay eggs on Silver Maples in the fall, while the wingless generation simply dies and falls off the twigs.

Oh, by the way:  we DID see our first bird of spring while walking the Bog Meadow Brook Trail this day. Soaring high above the trees, a pair of Turkey Vultures displayed their V-winged wobbly flight, the first ones we've seen this year.  As with Skunk Cabbage being the First Flower of Spring, few poets write rapturously about our First Bird of Spring, the Turkey Vulture, either. But we were sure glad to see them.