Pennsylvania Game News - April 2022 - 41

HE SMALL BACKWOODS FARM
had but a brief history. Just before the
house and barn were completed and the
family moved in, it was destroyed in a raging
forest fire. The farmer's wife and her mother
declared the catastrophe a foreshadowing of
the misfortunes that were sure to follow on
this tainted ground and they made no attempt
to rebuild.
The blackened forest regenerated through
T
successive stages, but the abandoned acreage
of the farm, having been cleared of stumps,
logs and rocks, re-emerged as a lush growth
comprised mostly of grasses and weeds, with
a predominance of goldenrod and milkweed,
wild onion, field garlic and ferns. Framed by
a border of blackberry canes and greenbrier,
staghorn sumac and thornapples, it offered a
variety of foraging and nesting opportunities
different than its surroundings.
It was here that a big black bear grazed on
the succulent growth on this chill, overcast
mid-April morning. And then, it snowed.
Wet, compound flakes slanted-in fast and
hard across the uplands. At first, all melted
immediately upon contact, then gaining
momentum, it piled up, massing as cottony
tufts and decorative lacework woven upon
every branch.
From the vernal equinox on, the weather
had grown progressively warmer as woodpeckers
tattooed trees and ruffed grouse
drummed, marking time for wood frog
choruses. Sometimes, though, nature backs
up sharply, as if to keep everything on the
same page, not allowing any portion of
spring's progression to get too far ahead.
The fickle zephyrs of April riffle the pages
back to that bookmark held yet in winter's
chapter, and a late snow, what the Pennsylvania
Dutch call an " onion snow, " hisses
perceptibly upon the landscape.
An onion snow was designated that
because it usually occurs after the spring
onions have been planted, sometimes
appearing right as they are sprouting. This is
usually a brief, wet snow, but depending on
elevation and temperature, it can be deeper
and longer-lasting in the uplands, where it is
called a " sapling bender. " Regardless of its
duration and temperament, the refreshing
white blanket readies the monochromatic
woods with a final washing before the hills
and hollows green-up.
Intent on nipping the fresh, succulent
greens and uprooting the silvery bulbs, the
bear ignores the snow. It collects on his
thick fur, separating as white lines atop the
hair tracts, rippling like rows of miniature
whitecaps on an ebony sea as he moves. His
bulky form is so black against the shadowless
snow it appears from a distance as if a
bottomless portal has opened in the earth.
He walks down toward the creek, his deep
tracks filling with water as he plods along.
A male eastern towhee forages in windblown
leaves beneath blackberry shrubs,
hopping forward then jumping back, noisily
tossing leaves back with both legs as he
uncovers seeds and insects.
At the top of the clearing, perched within
a hemlock, one foot tucked up, a Cooper's
hawk surveys all. Called a " Blue Darter " by
old-time farmers - the name referring both to
the slate-blue color of the mature bird's back
and the short, rapid flight of forest hawks,
the accipiters.
Even through the flakes, the hawk's crimson
eyes catch the towhee's movement and
he shifts his position, tilting forward.
APRIL 2022
41
Pennsylvania Game News - April 2022

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