Now could be our wintering time, when the timber of their gloaming drip and glisten with moist. Birds puff their feathers, snugging into their heat.
At Seward Park, town’s oldest recognized Douglas fir is resplendent with an eagle’s nest, awaiting subsequent yr’s new life. Proper now, the tree is resting, awaiting a brand new surge of spring mild, and the nest is quiet.
That is the time of our winter dreaming, our tread mushy within the deep duff of the paths. Right here, there isn’t a useless of winter. The canine strut of their raincoats, the children puddle stomp, and the feeders at Seward Park Audubon Heart are zipping and zooming with Anna’s hummingbirds.
The overwintering waterfowl, stately and serene, cruise Lake Washington. Buffleheads, frequent goldeneye, American wigeon and grebes dip deep for fishy fare, whereas mallards work the woodland path by the lake for snacks. Canada geese stroll the meadows; who might blame them, with all that tasty inexperienced grass?
The deeper the stroll into the paths, the larger the timber. Seward Park is house to timber by no means reduce, a few of the greatest and oldest within the metropolis, notes Ed Dominguez, naturalist on the middle.
The large timber abide in deep forest time, many of their second century and much past, their many winters unspooling yr by yr. Their peace has a means of quieting busy people, who, wanting as much as their majesty, replicate and decelerate.
With the flip of the winter solstice, daylight at first imperceptibly begins to elongate for us right here within the Northern Hemisphere’s increased latitudes, minute by treasured minute.
Proper now, on this time forward till spring, is the time to note how animals winter.
There are actually simply three easy methods, Dominguez notes: Go away, robust it out and fall asleep.
The Swainson’s thrush, the rufous hummingbird and so many extra — they’ve flown south, so we received’t see or hear them once more till spring.
So all of the sweeter is the mushy dialog of the kinglets within the winter boughs, the chickadees’ cheerful name, tune sparrows belting it out and the flashing blue strut of the Steller’s jay.
Now can be the time to behold the outstanding coping capability of the tiny Anna’s hummingbird. To get via our chilly snaps, they go into torpor, dropping their resting heartbeat to a near-zombie state. They puff up their bejeweled feathers, trapping air for insulation, and wait out our lengthy, chilly winter nights. They will survive even subfreezing temperatures.
And whereas we consider spring and summer time as our time of abundance, winter spreads its personal desk. Winter rains carry on the Lilliputian marvel of lichen, plumped up with rain, the fruiting mosses studded with seeds raised on delicate stems and mushrooms resplendent within the forest.
The mix of chilly and moisture stimulates the fungus in forest soils to fruit, elevating mushrooms of many sorts. Look carefully within the leaf litter and needle solid to see a wonderland of elfin saddles, the shaggy parasol and coral and button mushrooms, so aptly and fancifully named.
Historical tales
And the owls are busy in our velvety, chill darkish hours. Their breeding time is in January and February, and it received’t be lengthy till owlets arrive.
Owl Prowls led by Seward Park Audubon Heart are a featured winter delight to understand all that’s stirring within the forest, from voles to the nice horned owl, swooping on silent wings. “We will hear as many as three species and see their silhouettes against the night sky,” Dominguez mentioned.
Here’s a place, too, for contemplation of a few of the park’s longest tales, advised as an example within the hunk of granite by a path, sitting there for the reason that glacial ice dropped it hundreds of years in the past. Now festooned with licorice fern and moss and pixie cup lichen, it provides quiet counsel for cluttered human minds.
“As humans beings, we are so ephemeral on this planet,” Dominguez mentioned. Here’s a place to contemplate time on nature’s cadence. “We have trees that have been here 500 years,” Dominguez mentioned, “and a rock here for more than 10,000.”
There are signatures of simply final season too, within the snowberries, holding the final of their gleaming white fruits, aglow within the low mild of a late-winter afternoon. Ignored in spring and summer time due to their decrease sugar content material, the birds come to them now for winter sustenance.
The winter forest is a feast for our senses, too, with the hush punctuated by the mild percussion of rain, and cedars carrying shiny spangles of raindrops on the suggestions of their branches.
The park is particular in winter significantly for its present of the solace of stillness. “It’s a place where you can be alone, even on the busiest paths,” mentioned Joseph Manson, director of the Seward Park Audubon Heart.
“You can listen to birds, get away from it all,” Manson added. “The birds, the quiet — it’s an amazing place, and a little bit different in winter.”