Birds slip quietly to their nests or favorite roosts. The chattering squirrel curls up in his hollow tree or a summer nest of leaves.
Butterflies fold their wings and bees creep into their quiet hives.
Then darkness comes. Millions of mice scurry about. Muskrats emerge from the underwater entrances to their lodges and bank tunnels to swim and splash as they feed on tender shoots of cattails and sedges. Wild ducks and some of the shore birds feed regularly at night. Around every pond and marsh, in spring, there is a symphonic chorus of croaks, grunts, chirps and trills as the frogs and toads sing their mating songs, accompanied by the high-pitched whines of the mosquitoes and midges.