More than two months ago, the semester inundated and overwhelmed us, but now, from the calm of winter break, we can survey the passage from fall to winter here.

The top photo shows the owl nest box I built a year and a half ago but only recently found a way to raise up onto the aspen that broke off in a great, high wind. Because I used old barn wood, it weighed fifty pounds, which was too heavy for me and Alison to manage on ladders. Our taxidermist neighbor Ron Holt offered his front-end loader, and we had the thing securely mounted ten minutes after he hoisted me and the next box into position. We'll be hoping for a pair of great horned or barred owls to occupy it in the spring and raise some young. (The second photo above as well as the seventh and eighth show likely inhabitants.) The bridge does seem to invite a good bit of traffic, as well as a convenient open space in the midst of the marsh for owls.

The last sand hill cranes gathered on October 16, some 22 of them, and soared some 2,000 feet above us making their way southward. We also flushed the last of the woodcocks about the same time. We observed the last active wood frog on October 21 after a week of frosty mornings when the temperature reached up into the fifties. But the real surprise came on November 15, the opening day of gun season, when the tiny garter snake above showed itself on one of our trails. I snatched him up in order to record the latest sighting of a snake I've made since I moved to Michigan. The late warm weather played havoc with the deer hunting. On that opening morning we heard no more than twenty gun shots in the first ninety minutes, whereas last year I tallied just over one hundred in the first sixty minutes.

That's Shane in the fifth photo above. You can't see him or smell him as he ambles out for an evening stint in a tree blind. This year he did send an arrow through a doe, mortally wounding it, but we never did locate the poor creature. Shane followed the blood trail until it disappeared in the marsh. He felt terrible, but three different searches failed to find her.

Someone hit and killed a spring buck with his or her car up on the road, and I dragged the carcass over to the rocks near the east property line so that we would not smell him as he decayed, and set the trail camera up there for a few days hoping for interesting photos. Apart from crows, numerous deer, and all the neighbor dogs, the fox in the fourth photo above was about the most interesting visitor. Our dog has really enjoyed the deer's legs, the bare bones of which are now strewn in the snow around the house.

The first week of December brought the first snow of this year. Flocks of snow buntings arrived, tundra swans called loudly from their migratory passage several thousand feet above us, a pair of golden eagles rested in a maple in the east field, and the first significant snow fall held off until I found time to drop the mower deck and mount the snow blade on the tractor. The timing was impeccable.

The first snow, of course, means a renewed preoccupation with foot, paw, and hoof prints. The local coyote population seems stronger than any year since I've lived here. They've been performing their pyrotechnic choruses with a surprising frequency. Just before the first light on December 20, I heard four different outbursts from the river bottom. Marvelous. So when Alison's brother Kevin arrived from Alabama with his daughters Katie and Lissa, I invited them to come help search the marsh for the place where the wild things are, where the coyotes gather to howl at the moon. In a clearing among the young alders on the frozen six inches of snow, we saw a Milky Way of paw prints, suggesting that some 15 or 20 coyotes had raised a swirling ruckus there.

Jenny has arrived from unworthy Houston, with sister Marcy in tow. They took Katie, Lissa, and Kevin to a hill called Snow Snake for sledding, which no one in northern Alabama does. Brother-in-law Doug has returned from Pakistan, which hardly anyone in Michigan does. We'll all be gathering here on Christmas Day for cheer, food, surprises, and more cheer (with spirits).

Alison and I made two quick trips: one to South Carolina for time with Jerry, Carol, David, and Pam; and one to Kent, Ohio, for time with David, Shane, and Libby, where they gave us one of the most thoughtful and welcome gifts ever: Audubon's very first print, the Wild Turkey.

Merry Christmas, everyone.