There is something about a foggy morning that is utterly relaxing. The cool fog seeps into your bones and brings a calm with it unlike any other kind of weather. The world changes in the fog. Familiar landmarks are gone, only looming out of the fog when you are unexpectedly close to them. Sounds bounce about strangely in the mist, moving faster with a more hollow sound.

The best part of the fog is that it is just as strange for the wildlife as it is for people. Just like trees, perky-eared deer sometimes loom out of the fog. The fog seems to calm them too, and they often remain unaware or uncaring of human presence before dashing into the fog, leaving only an odd hollow echo of footsteps behind.

Lately, I have taken to lurking near marshes, where odd birds that few hear of spend their time. Tiny birds called soras, which look somewhat like small, big-footed chickens, hunt through the cattails. Their big feet walk on the duckweed and frogbit floating on the water while they hunt insects and frogs in the marsh.

Marsh Wrens give themselves away by singing. Otherwise, no one would notice they were there. Their bubbly song sounds like running water. Follow it and soon you will see the reeds shaking and quaking as the tiny bird hops from one to the other as it hunts through the marsh with its curved beak. Soras walk below them as they hunt, and Virginia rails, who have curved beaks and smaller feet, wander through as well.

The marsh holds many secrets that most of us never see. Occasionally, a sandhill crane will fly in, squawking its prehistoric call, and spend a day or three in the marsh. It eats and rests before flying further along the way as it migrates.

The marsh is a great place for migrating birds and dragonflies. (Yes, some of the larger dragonflies migrate.) The birds hunt through the marsh for the abundant insects and seeds that are there to refuel for the next leg of their journey. The tall plants hide them from view most of the time, but the dragonflies are unmistakable. They zoom, zip and dive like aerial acrobats as they catch their food on the wing. Many of them will move on as well.

Marshes are sometimes seen as unimportant places, but nothing could be further from the truth. There are animals that live only there that people rarely glimpse. To them, a local marsh is a home. To migrating birds, it is like finding the ultimate rest stop on a road trip, filled with food and a safe place to rest before traveling onward.

Right now, the animals in the marsh ebb and flow like a tide. A weather front comes through and brings birds with it, filling the marsh with life. Another change in the weather and the marsh empties, leaving only the foggy, haunting echo of the marsh wren behind.

Jeff Tome is a senior naturalist for programs and exhibits at the Jamestown Audubon Society and a longtime CWC volunteer and former board director. The Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy is a local nonprofit organization that is dedicated to preserving and enhancing the water quality, scenic beauty and ecological health of the lakes, streams, wetlands and watersheds of the Chautauqua region. For more information, call 664-2166 or visit www.chautauquawatershed.org or www.facebook.com/chautauquawatershed.