July Rainstorms Change the Woods

By Richard B. Primack 

“To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains & blows keeping men in-doors then the lover of nature must forth.” Henry David Thoreau in his Journal.
 
The heavy rains of the past two weeks have created unusual sights in the Webster Woods.  The outlet from Bare Pond is normally a gentle seasonal flow that is mostly below ground. However, during recent heavy thunderstorms, the stream became a surface torrent whipping the tannin-rich pond water into masses of foam. 
 

Foam stranded in the woods

 
 As the water receded, some of the foam was stranded in the woods.
 

A mass of foam looking like an octopus.

 
The foam sometimes took on animal-like shapes.
 

A sea-serpent of foam floats on a woodland pool.

 
 In other places the foam floated on quiet pools left behind by the flood.
 

Water spurts out from the ground.  

 
The rain was so intense that new springs started flowing.  In one place, water jetted out of the ground.