Happy Resurrection Day! I wish I were referring to the savior Jesus Christ and the Easter holiday, but today was the day I found my first tick of 2017. So April 16 marks the beginning of the 2017 tick resurrection. It’s something I’ve posted about almost annually on Perfect Duluth Day since 2005. Sometimes it happens as early as March, sometimes not until June, but the ticks always come back.

I picked up this year’s first tick by walking to the eastern terminus of the Millennium Trail in Superior and continuing past the parking lot there on a grassy trail to an overlook of Kelly Bay. I found two ticks while hiking; by the time three body searches were completed at home, the total count rose to six wood ticks and one deer tick.

Also, on the Millennium Trail itself, the first snake of the year.

And many, many wood frogs guarding many, many egg clusters. Let’s call them Easter eggs.

It’s hard to tell if any frogs are visible in the photo above. At least two can be seen below.

There was also a bald eagle, but it was too high in the sky to bother photographing with an iPhone.