Beet eat Ue OoNi eo Us Ls bel TN 21 
lass lay all around the map station, warning of recent vandalism. Above 
he sign, AREA OPEN FROM DAWN TO DUSK, the dusk seemed to be 
reeping in already. 
The winter wind tore at our hair and pulled at our jackets. Hesitantly 
we followed the board walks and trails, crawling through twiggy thickets 
o photograph empty wood duck houses in frozen water. In every direction, 
walls of stark trees blocked our advance with their powerful density. 
frozen wastes imprisoned huge tufts of sharp beige grasses. Beige, gray, 
und black dominated the scene. 
The ice, once silvered in winter sunlight, now turned to leaden gray. 
Suddenly as though stalked by some unseen danger, we turned back in 
yanic toward the car, our heels running rapidly through the dense wilder- 
ess, seeking the return to the warmth of Christmas in the big house. 
We'll leave the wilderness to the animals in winter ... the white-tailed 
leer, the muskrats, raccoons, striped skunks, red and gray foxes, wood- 
‘hucks, and cottontails. 
After centuries of homes for wildlife, were all of these to be wiped 
ut for the jet-age? 
From the big house’s Christmas windows I watched the deepening 
uurple twilight swallow up the Swamp. “Spring,” I thought. “Spring will 
ye the crowning season.”’ 
Plans were laid at once. But in January the first blow came from the 
tefuge Manager of Great Swamp: “Refuge closed March through June 
Nesting Canada geese. 
