Spring is coming to the BWCA!

Happy Easter! Can you spot "Bonnie and Clyde" in this photo? Grouse sure have great camouflage, don't they? They've been up to the house almost every evening lately, checking to see if the birds have dropped any seeds... there must be some, or they wouldn't keep coming?


The other night we saw the local "Easter Bunny" and boy, was he unhappy! Unlike the grouse, he doesn't blend in - our snowshoe hares are still bright, shiny white. He was hopping along and every second step he'd stop and look nervously at the sky - I couldn't get a picture because he decided it was way too open - and brown - his white coat stood out like a sore thumb - and he took off for the woods like a rocket! I think he was very smart, I've seen an eagle sitting on one of the trees looking for lunch several times lately.

Mike has been painting this week - warm enough for that! The lake ice is black and there's open water along the shore and in the channel between the outfitting building and the island. I think he's right about an unusually early ice-out, (unless we get a really hard freeze that sticks around) the ice should be gone soon.

Yesterday I finally got one of the butterflies we've been seeing for the past several weeks to pose for me, there were two sunning themselves on the porch.