Of Men and Marshes

2. of marshes and spring

2, of marshes and pring Spring, to marshland life on the north-central prairies, comes any time from midwinter to hot weather. Sometimes, it comes almost as a prolongation of a winter thaw. I saw migrating Canada geese in a wet eastern South Dakota in early February. I can still remember a small flock that appeared over a low hilltop, their clamor preceding and following them. Another year, a South Dakota spring came somewhat as a continuation of fall, with not enough winter cold to seal over the streams, and, when it should have snowed, it rained. That was not the way winter usually was in the Dakotas of my younger years. It was more usual to have snow when there should be snow and snow when there should be rain. On the calendar, spring sometimes comes when the snow is as deep and the ice as thick and as hard and the temperature as low as in the severest part of the winter. Twenty below zero Fahrenheit or colder and a two-foot snowfall in April must still be considered winter in actuality. Snow on plum blossoms and June snowdrifts must still be classed as snow. But the tracks of the wide-ranging minks during their late-winter breeding season are laid down in powdery snow or in slush, on wet sand or on frozen mud or on dry soil. Restless skunks emerge from hibernation long before the weather could tell them to, and great horned owls incubate and brood their young right on through late February and March and of marshes and spring 7 ~ . April blizzards. As sexual awakening progresses in the muskrat populations living out of sight of human eyes in their lodges and burrow systems, more and more animals come out and sit on the ice on mild days, until, with the ice gone, the main dispersal away from crowded wintering quarters begins. Spring comes for much aquatic life when surface waters pour over the ice and down underneath through cracks and holes. The floating ice rises, and vortices with foam-caps appear. The airgulping bullheads of the muskrat channels and the ice ridges swim away, leaving behind them the bodies of those that died. Water insects and crustacea float or are carried by wind or currents over the ice or in the eddies of the vortices, and some of them may move and some may not. Cracks widen, their edges become smooth, and the waters beneath invite small boys to peer and to stir and probe with poles. As the floating ice melts and evaporates on top, the lower layers become upper layers. The winter-killed fish collect on the surface to soften or to dry, depending upon whether they lie in or out of the 8 of marshes and spring water. About this time, the gulls come and, together with the crows that were around all winter, eat on the fish remains and the remains of turtles, snails, crayfishes, young dragonAies, and the other dead creatures a marsh presents to scavengers in spring. If there were heavy winter-killing, windrows of dead bullheads, pike, sunfishes, perch, buffalo, or the introduced carp surround the open spaces, or thousands of their rounded bellies protrude like pale bald heads from the water amid the rush stems. Where the frost sank deep under the mud margins, the frozen layer beneath the surface may detach itself from the unfrozen mud beneath that, with the result that large areas of marsh bottom Aoat exposed; and the gulls and crows work over this exposed mud for animal remains. The frozen mud melts and settles to the bottom again. Dispersing muskrats travel along marsh and lake edge, along streams and up gullies. They may act like cautious and adaptive explorers knowing what they are doing as they do it. They may get started in footloose and hazardous wandering and show up on city streets or in farmyards or in any number of out-of-the-way placesif they live long enough. They may travel far or they may not. Living uncertainly or living securely, they behave like muskrats. They hide or fight, doing their best to stay alive, somehow. Salamanders and garter snakes crawl out of large and small holes on the hillsides while ice can be seen within. Let spring come as a series of warm and rainy nights, and tiger salamanders seem to have inherited the earth. For...