hile winter can be slow to give up its grip here in the North Country, when the maple sap starts flowing we know it’s only a matter of time. It’s an exciting time of year, one that always focuses attention on the red maple out here on the edge of the Lost Lake Swamp.

We’ve long known that the red squirrels have a sweet tooth. As soon as the sap starts rising during the day, the squirrels get busy lapping it up. If you watch them this time of year, they take nips out of the bark of maple branches to start a flow of the tasty sap. The yellow-bellied sapsuckers usually aren’t far behind. I expect them to return sometime in the next week or two. But other birds take advantage of the sugary flow, as well. I’ve regularly seen chickadees, nuthatches, and early-migrating warblers, like yellow-rumps, taking advantage of drips of sap, as well as the early season insects that get in on the action.

But last Sunday was the first time that I’d ever seen a pine marten working over a maple tree. Perhaps it was just a matter of convenience. The marten, a light-faced individual who has been a regular visitor for more than a year, was checking out the compost pile when our dog Penny noticed and chased it up a nearby clump of red maple.

It’s a little game the two of them play. Penny, who turns 12 this month, is certainly no danger to the marten, who routinely runs 15 feet up a tree, before settling down to watch the entertaining beast pontificate and posture below. But this particular maple clump was just dripping with sap in the afternoon sun, when the thermometer hit the mid-40s. Rather than watch the dog, the marten quickly turned its attention to the sweet stuff. I grabbed my camera and got dozens of close-up shots as the marten greedily lapped up the sap for most of an hour. The marten, who pays even less attention to me than the dog, barely noticed I was there, apparently lost in a pleasant sugar buzz.

But then everyone seems to be a good mood up here when the sun is out, the snow is melting, and the maple sap is running. And why not? It is, without question, the sweetest time of year.