There is a thrill in the air when the big flights go over. They are messengers of the calendar, dramatically announcing a new season.

The other migration is just as important, in its quiet way. Its impetus is not ëUp, up, and away!í, but ëDown, down, and right hereí. Its characters are less glamorous, its distances less prodigious. It happens by ones and twos, and by millions. For many, it is completed in the magical moment of freeze-up.

The other migration is movement to the safety of water, the security of mud.

On a February day in the north, the temperature could be 30 degrees below zero. If you could pick up 65 degrees (without getting on a plane to Tampa), you might be tempted.

You can get those 65 degrees very quickly. Break through the ice on the lake, find the steady current of a stream, or locate a spring. The heat engine of northern winters is waterómoving water, or depths of water protected by insulating ice. Far more creatures retreat here, to the depths, than head south.

Insects and amphibians are not the only beneficiaries. There are water plants that hold green leaves all winter long, growing in gentle current of creeks and streams, or at the origin of springs. It is a joy to find these ambassadors of summer, while skiing through three-foot drifts!

Most residents of mud and water are not looking to stay longer than necessary. Content to let the sun come back from its southward swing, they let the ice turn gray and weaken, let the winds of March thaw the world again. Some will benefit by being ëfirstí on the scene for spring. Some will lag behind, waiting for just a few more degrees of warmth. Come May, they will be just as ready as we are, to break into the sunshine and enjoy another summer.

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Forest Lake Times
P.O. Box 218
880 SW 15 St.
Forest Lake, MN 55025
651-464-4601
Fax 651-464-4605