Deer Fragments

After a too-hot, too-early start, spring is now crawling along at its normal pace. The landscape is slowly turning green, and in a few weeks, traces of last year's animal deaths may be hidden forever. A walk along the Songbird Trail revealed fern fiddleheads just starting to poke through the earth, as well as trailing arbutus in bloom. Nestled in the lichens, mosses, and pine needles were scattered deer bones: stained by the soil, gnawed by rodents, fragmented by the elements.