I Like Thursday: Turkey Tracks

I spent Saturday with my sister and some friends hiking, eating, playing games and talking.  I have lots to like from that day.  Most of these are from our hike.

I like that I discovered the first skunk cabbage of the season.  It's one of my friends' favorite plants.  I also like that I've learned what clubmoss is - I always just called them mini pine trees.  Now I know better.

I liked the turkey tracks we found in the woods.  They were all over the place.  Some of them looked huge because of the way the snow melted.  When I saw the first set I thought:  there's an emu in the woods?  Right.  Like emus live wild in central Massachusetts.  But the tracks looked too darned big to be turkeys.  (Now who's the turkey?)

Later, we found some turkey down, followed by three plucked feathers, confirming these were not emu tracks (nor raptor tracks - which was another guess thrown out there).  The feathers were so very pretty against the snow.  The photo doesn't show the iridescence of the golden brown stripe.  The rest of it was so fine and fuzzy.

The snow wasn't deep and covered the area in a way that made it easy to explore off the trail.  We stopped to admire this very odd tree full of right angles.  You can't see in the photo, but those three branches? trunks? rose 20 to 40 feet above us.  I was curious about the rotted end of it; I discovered a collection of soft dried grass and strands of fur.  A nest?  I wondered what little critter had lived there.

My sister showed off her latest painting from photos taken during an earlier walk in these woods.  I'm not sure which was more amazing - the colors of the fungus (beige, red, blue, green, gold) or how her watercolor looked like the original photograph. (Click on the photo to make it bigger.)






I like that the local titmice are acting all twitterpated.  They usually call at the feeder in harsh, hoarse voices.  But now they squeak and twitter while fluttering their wings at each other.  I enjoy watching them.

Lastly - I like that I got a chance to photograph the local crocuses.  Yay for a bit of color.  Across the street from this clump is a lawn full of leaves with a ton of little flowers starting to grow:  more crocuses and looks like daffodils, irises and some other tiny flower.

Happy stuff.  Grateful to have days like that, and yet greedy to have more.  I often say I lead a charmed life - one of these days my luck will run out.  But not yet!  On top of that, there's more charming things at Not Afraid of Color's I Like Thursday.  Enjoy!