Spring is a season of dramatic changes. Snow melts, and lakes and rivers open up. Hardwood forests turn green. Some animals wake up from hibernation while others return from warmer lands to the south. Dramatic as the changes are, however, many are small in size and easy to overlook. Here are some of the small sightings of spring encountered on recent hikes.
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Two generations of wood frogs -- an adult and a mass of eggs -- float in a pond. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)
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A pied-billed grebe floats mostly submerged. A diving bird feeding on small fish and invertebrates, they can adjust their buoyancy to submerge or surface slowly. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)
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Insects gather pollen at an early catkin. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)
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Hepatica, one of the earliest blooming spring flowers, add small bits of bright color to the forest floor. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)
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A mourning cloak butterfly suns itself on a forest trail. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)
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A banded wooly bear caterpillar crosses the Munger Trail. The caterpillar overwinters frozen solid, thawing out in the spring to continue its transformation into a tiger moth. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)
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Three white bloodroot flowers standout in a shadowed forest. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)
