Crow's Nest: Ice and Spring

February 25, 2022

By Natural Lands

By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager.

A landscape in late winter with pasture, wetlands, and hayfields with trees coated in ice in the background

Photo: Daniel Barringer

I always kick myself if we have a beautiful snowfall or ice storm and I don’t try to get photos. Today I made time available for some photos, but I’ll add that it was more breathtaking in person.

First I want to draw your attention not to the ice clinging to the branches of the trees, but to the color of the hay fields. While it is tempting to think of winter as uniformly drab, the fields have gained some coloring just in the last week. Not the brilliant green of spring yet, but a newly-bright yellow that hints at the coming season.

With volunteers I have been working in a hedgerow, clearing invasive vines and shrubs such as Amur honeysuckle, autumn olive, multiflora rose, and Japanese barberry. We created little chipping piles around it, so I’m hoping next week we’ll still have some freezing weather so I can get the chipper out there without making ruts. It’s time for me to wrap up these winter projects because prescribed fire season is coming up and then we’ll be seeding a new pollinator patch and not long after it will already be time to mow trails.