A foggy look south from atop the West Bluff. Photo by Sue Johansen, Park Naturalist.

 I love foggy days at the lake. We were up on the west bluff last weekend, before the 3 inches of snow came, to enjoy the signs of spring that were starting to crop up. One sign was the ice off the lake (a week earlier than last year). It seemed to happen over night – Friday night the ice was there and by Saturday morning it was gone! We saw other signs of spring up on the bluff. We saw hepatica starting to bloom. Dutchman’s breeches had green leaves and a few had flower stalks. There was green starting to come in here and there and a lot of the green was coming from garlic mustard. Continue reading →

Devil’s Lake on April 9. The ice is slowly starting to leave the north shore. Photo by Sue Johansen, Park Naturalist

I was out and about this week checking to see if the ice was starting to melt on the lake. Spring has been slow to arrive in our area and a sheet of ice still lingers here on Devil’s Lake. I stopped at Messenger Creek, on the southwest end of the lake, where the water was starting to open and as I got out of my car I heard a beautiful chorus of spring peepers singing in the vegetation alongside the road. You can take a listen by clicking here.

 You can hear the loud, “PEEP” sound the males make amongst the chorus of red-wing blackbirds. You’ll hear a few Western Chorus frogs too. They sound like a finger being run over the teeth of a comb.

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I am sitting up at the Nature Center, looking out the window and even though the calendar says it’s spring, it’s not feeling too spring like at the moment. The wind is howling and there’s a fine mist of rain coming down. Well, at least it’s rain and not snow, but still it’s not helping feel very spring like. What is making it feel like spring are the birds that have started to migrate back this part of the world.

Turkey vulture in the pines by the Nature Center. Photo by Sue Johansen, Park Naturalist.

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