Cedar waxwings alight nearby, their swashbuckling black masks, velvety feathers, and red wingtips a delight to the eye. This is bird heaven, too. The woods are full of nesting sites, hunting perches, and berries. The dead trees have taken on new life as nurse logs and nesting sites. I cross little seeps and pass a miniature pond so covered with duckweed that it looks like a bowl of thick pea soup.
Water floods the edges of the lake, reaching into tangles of dogwood to form dark, secret pools.
Whirligig bugs dance there in endless, frenzied circles and send a patter of reflected light to the leaves that arch above. A fragile bog reaches into the lake on the eastern shore. In this wet, otherworldly landscape, the mat of sphagnum moss slowly and continually grows upward and outward, all the while sinking to form a dense mat of peat. Only acid-loving plants can grow in this unusual environment. Labrador tea fills the air with its robust scent and wild cranberry trails among the sphagnum.