Under Red Maple Flowers

     Red maple trees are striking with innumerable red blossoms from the latter half of March to the second week of April, here in southeastern Pennsylvania, as in much of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada.  And I associate those lovely, little blooms with many other natural beauties in woodland swamps where red maples are wild and suburban areas where that type of tree is abundantly planted for its many beauties the year around.  
     The ancient, primordial choruses of hundreds of cold-blooded male spring peepers and American toads ring out from under the blush of red maple flowers' multitudes in wooded swamps, day and night, from late March through much of April.  Each peeper repeatedly peeps shrilly for a minute or more in shallow water, stops, then continues peeping, while the toads trill musically, time after time, for about 30 seconds each trill while sitting upright in the shallows of a pond in woodlands and thickets.  And, occasionally, while those tailless amphibians are chorusing to attract mates for spawning in the water, a pair of Canada geese will fly over, honking boisterously.
     The innumerable blooms of lesser celandines carpet many a damp woodland floor yellow under the soft-red of red maple flowers.  And the moister parts of those woods floors are green with developing skunk cabbage leaves.  The red canopies, yellow rugs and lush-green skunk cabbage foliage paint pretty pictures of new life in abundance in local woods toward the end of March. 
     At this time, too, pairs of lithe wood ducks are looking for available nesting cavities in which the hen woody will lay her clutch of about 12 eggs.  Many sycamore and red maple trees have hollows where wind ripped limbs off the trees, exposing the wood to agents of decay.  Sometimes those attractive woodies perch on the branches of blooming red maples to rest.  The maple flowers and ducks together in the tree tops are lovely sights.
     I also associate red maple blossoms with greening grass, the lovely flowers of Veronicas, crocuses daffodils and forsythia, and the welcome singing of mourning doves, American robins and northern cardinals under the canopies of planted red maples on the lawns and along streets in suburbs.  Some of the birds sing from the midst of those red canopies, adding their feathered beauties to that of those wonderful flowers.
     Little colonies of purple grackles perch in the red canopies of red maples that happen to be near the dark-green of spruce and fir trees the grackles will eventually raise young in.  The grackles add their iridescent purple and green beauties to that of the maple blossoms.       
     Blushes of red maple flowers also help highlight the beauties of the blue sky and white, cumulus clouds on sunny days.  How wonderful to look up through red canopies to the sky and scudding clouds that constantly change shapes.  And, perhaps, a hawk or vulture might be drifting and circling before one of those attractive clouds.  
     Red maple foliage adds much beauty to local wooded swamps and suburban areas.  It is a major part of my pleasant memories of spring, and many of its wonders, in southeastern Pennsylvania.