Cattails, Fireweed and Yellowthroat

Marshes and swamps are a wonderful place for life - not just human life - particularly if you are a naturalist. Spring is my favourite time in these wetlands with the chorus of frogs, toads, dragonflies and other insects and especially breeding birds from ducks to rails, bitterns and songbirds.

Perhaps the cheeriest songbird of the marshland is the northern yellowthroat. Its loud "whitchity, whitchity, whitchity" fills my heart with the luscious life of spring. As the season progresses, the marsh becomes a quieter place for the ear. In late summer, however, it becomes a lavish feast for the eye. The fruiting cattail heads are mature and ready to explode into fluff-borne seeds. The same is happening to the fireweed. I enjoy the curlicues and fluff as much as the rosy magenta flowers. The yellowthroat adds his touch of colour which will soon change to winter drab as he heads south until next year.