Figure 1 – Maple buds, Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Sudbury, MA. (s) DE Wolf 2018.

Last Thursday, I drove to work in a wet and persistent snow. Winter has hung on, and some are referring to the date as the 96th of January. But I have noted that, in some gardens, the forsythia is beginning to make a bold statement, and on some days the temperature had tickled the sixties.

Today, in fact, was glorious, and I ventured into the marshland in the early afternoon. This is a quiet time with few birds. Still I heard the stomping of a woodpecker, saw mallards and Canadian geese as well as a lone king bird. What was most striking was, as shown in Figure 1, the fact that the swamp maples were taking advantage of the warmth and sunlight and starting to bud. The image of the figure was taken, not ideally, with my biding lens. It did however offer some lovely bokeh.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 200 mm , ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/2500th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.