April Signatures

By ED WESELY

A banquet for the senses

AWAKENING FROGS — Spring is finally stirring, especially in a little wetland near the Lakeside School in Honesdale. On March 28, dozens of wood frogs had assembled, with choruses of ‘quacking,’ and with much splashing and jostling.

Then, as the quacking diminished that evening, it was nearly drowned by trilling tree frogs, our familiar ‘spring peepers.’

Both groups were lured by a sunny day, from a little woodland that separates the Lakeside School from athletic fields at Honesdale High School. Thanks to caring administrators and architects, we have an oasis where the amphibians and children, with an occasional duck, live in harmony on a couple of acres in a residential neighborhood.

RED SHOULDERED HAWK — The day after a rainstorm, the frog pond at home was filled and we discovered a large hawk—about the size of a crow—perched in a walnut tree near the pond. We couldn’t see its “red shoulders,” but a positive field mark was a set of white bands across the tail.

According to a field guide, this forest hawk, “usually found near water, hunts mainly mammals and some reptiles and amphibians from perches.”

Three days later, the hawk was still perched near the pond. We’d seen it glide to a nearby field—perhaps seeking a mouse—but our theory about its behavior has been tainted by the field guide: “That hawk is waiting for peepers and salamanders to migrate from the woods!”

THOMAS COLE — With spring unfolding, I was mailed a piece written by the American landscape painter Thomas Cole (1801-1848), whose canvasses of the Catskill region have inspired generations of fellow artists.

Saddened by the destruction of beautiful landscapes in the Catskills, Cole deplored the “wantonness and barbarism” that caused it.

“Nature has spread before us a rich and delightful banquet,” he wrote in 1835. “We are still in Eden; the wall that shuts us out of the garden is our own ignorance and folly.”

But contact with nature, Cole believed, can release healing powers, “like a fountain of cool water to the way-worn traveler.”