Soon I entered an area where the woods got denser and discovered to my delight what I had been seeking most earnestly. SPRING EPHEMERALS!!! White was the order of the day being represented by Large-flowered trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)...
...a plant which as of writing this I am still unable to identify (I feel ignorant)...
and Rue Anemone (Anemonella thalictroides).
I got pretty darn happy at this point. I never can explain why I get so joyful at seeing gorgeous flowers in the wilderness.
It’s also worth noting that in just about every location with the slightest amount of inundation was this plant, which was still in its rosette stage but what was noteworthy about it was that the leaves in that rosette were massive, sometimes nearly a foot long and wide. Well the sights of hundreds of giant leaves will soon become the smell of hundreds of Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). Yup. But belive it or not I'm actually excited for it. Nearing the end of my self-allotted time, I moved just a bit farther to find myself on a bridge in the middle of a swamp. With the cloud darkened sky, no sounds at all, the water level so high the spaces between the boards of the bridge filled with water, and a tree and shrub broken view, the whole situation was one of wonder. 
But what capped the whole thing off was the not so distant call of a Pie-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps). The spooky and low mating call set me a flutter. It’s a call that I had always listened to on recordings but incomparably to hearing it in real life; truly unbeatable.
But what capped the whole thing off was the not so distant call of a Pie-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps). The spooky and low mating call set me a flutter. It’s a call that I had always listened to on recordings but incomparably to hearing it in real life; truly unbeatable.
On the return trip I also ran into a patch of beautiful Marsh Marigolds (Caltha palustris) which broke the rule of white. While I was forced to cut today’s trip short due to class crunches, it was still an amazing day. Like last time, it doesn’t seem that I actually did much especially in the way of distance traveled but that’s meaningless in the face of all the beautiful things I observed even if it was just the awesome interaction of light within the woods and clouds or the plethora and small creeks. Besides making me feel sky high for the rest of the day, I’m also now pumped for the weeks ahead as I saw more in the way of the impending flower and bird explosion than already present birds or blooming flowers.
GET OUTSIDE!!! It’s beautiful and will only become more so as the season matures.
Thanks for reading.
Edward Warden
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