Green Woods full of Life

Great rains arrived: 1.33 inches May 8 with another fifth inch May 9. The Woods flooded westward and the water remains, filling the Main Wash through most of its length.

The Woods are their most alive now. Green is everywhere filling the understory, converting it to a dense jungle. It is a great time to be a deer or rabbit or other herbivore.. so much to eat. Fresh green grasses everywhere are waist high 100-150 cm through the Woods. This morning I heard white-tailed deer snorting repeatedly west of the Bur Oak Bridge but could not see .. so much green. They probably could hear but not see me too.
I was surprised by box turtles on the trails suddenly in front of me: near tree #113 top of first (western) rise of Ravine Trail; and on the NW trail at NW#2 stake (nice bright orange/red body markings); and by tree 27.1 the big dead green ash on the Tree Loop; and by a tilted green ash tree #351(?) along the SW Trail.
The floods moving across the northeastern Delta, have shifted eastward and cut a new channel, a little closer to the channel that existed before the big cottonwood fell.
The East Pond rose to 3.0 feet and 3 days later is back down to 2.86. The NW Pond was 2.4 today and covered with a light gray white skim (of some pollen?) No odonates observed. Mosquitoes are moderately abundant but not obnoxious biting yet.
Gossamer threads are becoming more common. I felt 9-10 touch my face near Tall Stump and more elsewhere along the trails.
A large dead hackberry top dropped across the NW trail pinning a small elm by the diatom pool. I cut and cleared the debris.. leaving the horizontal tilted elm some chance to live and grow.
Bird calls all through the Woods. Geese calling in flight unseen above.
I cut and killed one more Amur honeysuckle. It was hard to find east of the big walnut on the Tree Loop because its flowers were done. Blooms of multiflora rose are just getting going.
Bright red fungi, like scarlet cup, Sarcoscypha coccinea are common along the damp trails. Lamium pupureum has small discreet pale lavender blooms in bunches.
Big walnut #39 above Bur Oak Bridge does not look good. Green leaves mostly limited to lower stem leaves. Much of crown probably dead. I hope the tree survives. The other large walnut at east end of the Pipeline Trail looks worse.. still has one bunch of fresh green leaves on lower stem; but it looks like it will die this year.
I put on my wading boots and sloshed west upstream from the beaver dam with the chain saw, to clear a tangled blowdown blocking the SW trail; a big elm, killed by Ophistoma, Dutch elm disease.
In the ankle-deep clear water at the junction of the SW Trail and E-W Trail I watched a leech-like dytiscid diving beetle larva swimming. A water tiger, with long fierce jaws and a swollen belly. Hopefully it was eating every mosquito larva it could find.
Fresh blue paint in the NE quarter to brighten old blazes; but I did not clear the trails of general grassy and shrubby growth.