These are the very special days of spring discoveries in the ravine. When you're never quite certain what you'll be coming across. We've had our eyes out for the emergence of garter snakes but haven't seen any yet. Not that our lack of sighting is universal; plenty of our ravine hiking friends have told us they've had better luck. It's useless to look for them. You've got to be surprised by your eye catching sudden movement and then, there they are, emerging from their winter nests, adults, adolescents and the young of the season, sometimes in a squirming mass of eight snakes.

So, zero snakes for us today. But we did see the first of the spring flowers to come into bloom in our neck of the woods. Clumps of Coltsfoot are emerging, their bright little yellow caps so alike those of dandelions. This afternoon we saw them on the banks of the creek where they usually first appear, emerging from the leaf mass. That is soil about as organically rich as it comes.

This is yet another really warm -- verging on hot day, with little wind to disperse the heat of the spring sun. The forest is rapidly responding to the increasing warmth. Day by day we can identify progress in life returning to shrubs and trees. Hazelnut shrubs' tiny ruby flowers beside their catkins are now in evidence if one peers closely enough; they herald a season's hazelnuts, never in great abundance but fascinating to watch as they mature and the forest squirrels make quick work of them.

We saw robins about and flocks of much smaller birds we were unable to identify. And of course groups of chickadees with their readily recognizable voices and propensity to pop in and out of the conifers, at least one nuthatch accompanying them.

 The maple trees are beginning to litter the ground with their bright red florets. Looking up at the trees, viewing the naked branches tipped with bright red they quite distinguish themselves. The poplars release their seed heads a bit later on dripping with catkins the wind disperses in white fluffy puffs.

We saw the first of the Mourning Cloaks today, as well. Usually we espie a shadow flitting about and when we look up and around, there it is, the Mourning Cloak. They too are the first of the season of butterflies that will eventually pass through, in and around the forest. In another week or so we'll be treated to their aerial dance of courtship.

On our return back to the creek from the larger circuit we take through the forest trails that take us away from the creek, we were curious to see whether the pair of Mallards we'd seen yesterday were still around. We hadn't seen them in our earlier pass and assumed that people walking through with their dogs might have disturbed them. But no, there they were closer to the large outtake pipes the municipality uses to flush stormwater through the creek and holding ponds located throughout the community.

We were uncertain whether we would see the goldfish again, but there they were, calmly swimming back and forth a water fled downstream, whirling about the little pool that gives them some depth and likely catches an abundance of water-borne aquatic life they feast on in the chain of survival.