4 January

 Another dark morning, and quiet.  There was very little evidence of bird life--a raven at one point, and a fleeting glimpse of a pacific wren.

There were moments of light, casting the "harp" into silhouette.

The Forest continues to breed fungi--and not fungi, but slime molds, correctly classified as "mycetozoa," -- fungus animals, so-called because of their mobility and planning abilities.

After the mystery of the "poached egg fungus," which has subsided into a small, hard nubbin, a second, similar organism has appeared.

  

In fact, I hadn't noticed it on our walk, but when I downloaded this photo, there was another small orange blob with white emerging.  

I think I remember where I took this photo--it will be interesting to track the development of whatever this is.  At a surmise, it's a yellow slime mold starting to extend itself.  Either that or someone has dropped a fried egg onto this log.   There's so much to see in this Forest!

At the end of a log, another assortment of polypores and fungi emerges.

The "muppet" we observed last winter has morphed into a canine-looking creature.

In this mossy  forest, it's easy to see why folktales of strange creatures have emerged.

These jelly drops look as though someone has dropped pink paint beside the path, but a closer look reveals them as fungi.  This warrants continued observation:  MacKinnon and Luther's Mushrooms of British Columbia describes their development as resembling a brain.

The Marsh was quiet.  

Views of the mountains to the south were dimmed by mist.

The winter complement of waterfowl wasn't in evidence, nor was the collection of songbirds in the Marsh's borders.

Although the warm weather is reducing the snow pillow,  run-off from the mountains is keeping the water level high.

We'll hope for a colder month and an accumulation of snow to bolster the summer's water supply.