Stretching across the Bear Creek floodplain in north Columbia, Missouri, the Garth Nature Preserve harbors one of the best urban wetlands that I have yet to encounter. Accessed by a fine network of trails, it is visited primarily by joggers, dog-walkers and couples focused more on their conversation than on the natural beauty that surrounds them. For those of us who care to look, there is always much to see.
This morning I found the flora and fauna to be well ahead of schedule, as is occurring across much of North America in the midst of our ongoing heat wave. The rosy glow of redbuds brightened the greening woodlands while a background chorus was provided by northern flickers, chorus frogs, trilling toads and red-winged blackbirds. Though the latter songsters are commonly heard in late March, they were joined by the distinctive chortle of leopard frogs, the scattered call of cricket frogs and, if I was not mistaken, the deep croaks of a few groggy bullfrogs. Aquatic turtles were abundant, peering from the shallows or basking on mats of vegetation and a lone water snake wound through the cattails. Eastern bluebirds, tree swallows and eastern phoebes feasted on a new generation of insects and a pair of red-tailed hawks cavorted overhead, already well into their nesting season.
While all ecosystems offer unique sightings during each season of the year, wetlands are especially interesting in the spring as amphibians and reptiles emerge from their winter slumber and colorful birds return from the south to nest and raise their young. Of course, this riot of life is fueled by the insect hordes, most of which overwintered as eggs, pupae or larvae in these same marshlands.
