Visiting my daughter Sarah and grandson Charlie a few days ago, Juana, Charlotte and I take advantage of the splendid day we are presented with and travel to a local wildlife sanctuary in Ipswich. The first thing I spot is an artistically stacked wood pile that has a massive branch cutting through it. I don’t think this pile ever gets used.
Making our way to a vernal pool, we find the walk indicative of an early melt as our shoes sink deeper and deeper into a layer of mud sitting above the frozen soil. It matters little as we hop from tuff to tuff of grassy clumps that form little islands in a sea of mire. The vernal pool is still frozen. I look for egg masses and other signs of life but it is too early in the season. Charlie finds an interesting stick that he shows off.
Birds chirping and a fresh breeze in the air, we make our way toward the river. The forest is a broad mix of conifers and deciduous trees. There is little active growth, which lets us spot a wide variety of mushrooms growing as the bases of many trees.
A nearby frozen pond sports a few mallards waddling across the cold surface looking for a place to rest. A little further up the trail, we stop at a spot where the chickadees are known to land on your hand, if filled with seed. Everyone puts out their hands with a few seeds and quietly waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Finally, Sarah is the first rewarded with a tiny bird quickly landing and alighting from her hand. In time everyone else is also as lucky. Another pond holds a flock of mallards swimming and nibbling detritus emerging from a drainage pipe. They fly in and out with noisy quacks and flapping of their wings. On the other side of the culvert sits a beaver den, which is far enough away not to cause flooding.
We linger for quite a while waiting for chickadees and watching for mallards. But as the sun starts to set we know it is time to leave and blaze a new trail back to the car walking through ankle deep water and shoe swallowing mud.
