Our Very Own Wetland

It isn't classified as a wetland and isn't in fact a wetland, but given all the rain we've been experiencing this past month or so and throwing in the all-night rain of last night, anyone treading out into the ravine could be forgiven for imagining that what lies before them is a wetland.

Everything is solidly drenched and dripping. Great puddles lie just beyond the trails and upon the trails themselves are, here and there, muddy areas we've become accustomed to mucking through of late. Good thing our two little dogs are so small we just wash their muddy feet off in the laundry tub on arrival at home.

Little wonder in some of these places jewelweed grows rampant. Although by the time it comes to maturity there is scant little sun, and as a result very few of the plants actually raise their bright yellow heads. No matter, the violets are enjoying the steamy wet conditions.

As a matter of fact, all the mid-to-late spring flowers are, as well. Tiny white strawberry flowers, and emerging blackberry flowers. We've a veritable wildflower preserve in the ravine. Buttercups have raised their bright sunny little heads, as well.

The white starry-shapes of bunchberries gladden the undergrowth on either side of the trails. And if one peers carefully enough, you can still discover Jack-in-the-pulpits, though they're now hiding quite successfully in the succession growth that shields the shy flowers.

Lilies of the Valley and foamflower have raised their showy little white flowers, and Solomon's Seal their long floral offerings. Red osier dogwood is in bloom, holding aloft their white dish-shaped flower bunches, and the stag-horn Sumachs have recovered finally sufficiently to suddenly appear to grow their crowns of sun-filtering leafs.

What luck; as we approach a bridge alongside the main creek a large bird suddenly appears, swoops down under the bridge, up again, and into a nearby tree. As we ascend the hill we come abreast where this bird sits a short distance from us on a branch of an old pine.

It's our old friend, the barred owl. Larger by far than any other bird that we've become familiar with, as denizens of this forested ravine. The Pileated woodpecker comes a distant second, size-wise. The owl, first spotted in January, again in February, then heard hooting from the depths of the woods on occasion.

Now he sits there, surveying his hunting grounds. From time to time swivelling his broad head with its large, blunt and dark eye mask to rest on us, standing there, watching him in awe.
His presence is troubling to smaller birds, and a pair of robins shriek their dismay, so he soon swoops off again, coming to rest a mere short distance away on another tree.

Where a group of blackbirds take similar umbrage at his sudden unwanted appearance and call out their annoyance, compelling the large bird to take his presence elsewhere, once more. This is repeated several more times; our being able to watch him from tree to tree, until he disappears.

A rare treat for us. And the ravine has other treats in store for us this day, as well.

A dark-striped garter snake suddenly darts across the path as we approach and desperately swirls its way into the damp and lush undergrowth, anxious to remove itself from our near presence. A pair of cardinals flies past - one after the other - their bright carmine picked up by a weak sun behind a light cloud cover; they disappear into a copse of trees.

Other, somewhat less delightful residents of the ravine come out to greet us, those blood-sucking mosquitoes that are breeding in all that standing water, and we wonder where on earth all the bright and colourful dragonflies have gone off to...? Truants.