Hello, and happy St. Patrick’s Day! I hope you are enjoying this day – we certainly are! It’s a beautiful sunny day here in the upper Midwest, and we got outside to do a little wandering and to take in the warmth of the sun!
Today I did two walks. The first was just a little break during a morning songbird banding program I was helping out with. My friend Annika and I strolled along the Acorn trail (the same trail I posted about last weekend). No Barred Owls this 
time, and the trail was quite icy, so it was slow going. But we did make the all-important discovery that Mother Nature was displaying her greenery today as well, in the form of soft, bright moss on a stump… everyone’s getting into the spirit of the holiday!
After the program and a quick lunch, my husband Mark and our friend Linda accompanied me to Edenbrook Conservation Area, off Dell Road in Eden Prairie. I’d originally had another park in mind, so this walk was a last minute change in plans… and since I didn’t have a map (which resulted in us losing the trail twice!), I’m definitely supplying you with the trail map here. It didn’t help that most of the trail was snow-covered, but the map would certainly have come in handy! We reached Edenbrook about mid-afternoon, and by then the temps were in the mid 40’s. So although the trail was hidden under snow, it was pretty soft and somewhat slushy, with almost no ice – definitely manageable. However, things have been warming up over the past week or so, which meant that we did encounter some open areas that were mostly mud. So if you decide to do any walking there in the near future, be prepared for puddles, mud, and slushy snow – and if you’re there when the temps have dropped again, you can surely expect some icy conditions as well. But overall it was easy going, and the day was too beautiful to be indoors!
The map doesn’t indicate distances, but we estimate our walk was about 2.5 miles or so. The area is primarily wetland encompassed by mixed woods, with Purgatory Creek winding through. The creek offered me my first sight of moving water this year – ahhhh! Although we’ve been seeing the return of the first migrating birds for over a week now, the sound of trickling water did much more to convince me that spring is actually on it’s way. Such a welcome, welcoming sound!
We began our ramble at the Edenbrook parking area off Dell Road. There’s a lovely gazebo nearby, on the hill overlooking the wetland, which would be a wonderful 
place for a picnic once summer arrives. The start of the trail is bordered mostly by maples, oaks, and cedars. This part of the trail was alive with birds: Northern Cardinals, Black-capped Chickadees, White-breasted Nuthatches, Slate-colored Juncos, Blue Jays, American Robins – and a Wood Duck passing by overhead. But once we moved on to more open country it became very quiet, and stayed that way throughout the remainder of the walk, even when we reached the woods at the south edge of the wetland.
The warmth of the sun, the peaceful quiet of the wetland, the soft rush of the creek, and the birdsong fading away behind us, all conspired to make this a very relaxing walk. Even maneuvering around the slushy and muddy areas was no hardship – it was just too nice a day!
At the south side of the wetland we found a paved walk that lead us into the residential area. My guess is that there were other, more rustic trails to be had, but we couldn’t find them under the snow cover. I guess we’ll just have to go back later in the year and do a little more exploring! We didn’t notice much in the way of signage either, which would have made a map even handier. Since we were passing over marshy land, we encountered a number of boardwalks, such as the one pictured above, all very well maintained, and the easiest part of the trail to follow!
As we entered the residential area, which looped back to the parking lot, we 
passed a small pond bordered by cattails. We could hear water rushing down the nearby north-facing hill and into the pond, but it was still hidden beneath snow and ice. It was a lovely spot to exit the wetland.
I won’t have another opportunity to get out wandering until late in the coming week, so I’m very happy to have been able to take advantage of this beautiful day! I hope you all had an equally memorable St. Patrick’s Day!