Delightful, isn't it? It's the kind of image you really wouldn't come by unless you were paying close attention to nature, as these haiku poets did.

I agree — lots of life and death in haiku. That is Japan for you. It's a tricky thing to translate actually because we tend to view death differently in the West than they do. That's changed a bit with the Buddhist ideals that have been flowing west ever since the hippie movement, but it is still a difference. There is a wonderful concept here that the Japanese call mono no aware. The wikipedia entry doesn't do the term justice, but it does give a nice overview: Mono no aware