Our Early Spring Ravine

Oh the pleasures that await us daily in our regular morning ravine walks! It helps immeasurably that we've been blessed with clement weather at last. Clear blue skies, gentle temperatures of 14 to 16 degrees, kindly breezes and the return of outdoor expectations beyond snow and ice. It's yet early spring and we're delighted to see evidence that nature has not forgotten to entice her flora and fauna to celebrate this season for our delectation.

Finally, the sodden trails have dried. We no longer slog through gluey soil and muck, side-stepping large pools of stagnant water left from the melting snow and ice, augmented by the torrential rains which followed, day after day. Now the trails are dun-coloured and dry with the occasional bit of still-muddy path doing its best to accommodate our expectations. Now as we walk through the woods we have company; Mourning cloaks, skippers and blues flit across the trail.

Bumblebees zip about the undergrowth and pass under our very noses. The sun glances off the green iridescence of tiger beetles settling on the ground before us and swiftly taking off again. There, in the distance, the rat-tat of woodpeckers, the piercing melody of a cardinal. Robins skip about the paths looking for those elusive earthworms. Crows coast high on the wind, throwing their shadows over the path, over us. For additional colour, a bluejay fleets through the treetops.

Alders, apple trees, willows, hawthorne, ironwood and poplar have burst into a green fuzz. And the Serviceberry! overnight it discovered it was due to blossom and now boasts a white decor of thickly-laden flowers. Nothing yet from those laggards, the oaks, beech and birch. Sensitive ferns have begun unfurling in the new warmth and light of this early spring environment and the encouraging sun slipping through the still leafless tree branches coddles an endless sea of early wildflowers.

Woodland violets are everywhere, with a few early yellow and mauve flowers strutting their stuff. Trilliums are in evidence here and there, occasional large clumps and single plants, all striving to make the occasion before the descent of shadow. There are, indeed, early trillium flowers in bright blossoming carmine nodding in the undergrowth beside the trails. Circling tree trunks the first of the lilies-of-the-valley leaves, flowers yet to come.

Foamflower, astilbe, strawberry, and a host of bedding grasses crowding one another. The primitive and not very attractive horsetails have already set their pace. The creek tributaries glint back the fierce sun; we can see where the ancient clay nodules, so perfectly round, have been dislodged, sitting invitingly on the creek bed awaiting capture by adventurous, boot-wearing, mud-happy children.

Squirrels run haphazardly about the understory, up trees, showing off for us, attempting and succeeding in impossible leaps from one tree branch to another. The red squirrels scold us for our presence, the black and grey are saucily unperturbed at our proximity. Our little dogs beg to differ and make half-hearted attempts to scatter the squirrels who respond by insolent tail-flicks as they circle tree trunks.

As we ascend the last long hill we see a rotund raccoon making his lazy way up the trunk of a tree. Same fellow who regularly visits our compost, we wonder?