Words fail and birds sing ~ it's Spring

I have to agree with Mark Twain ... “It's spring fever.... You don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

Marching through the last days of winter

It's the middle of March and we're still enjoying winter. We had another pretty major snow storm on the weekend and the day before sighted the first of our spring birds. David's snapshots of a Cedar Waxwing flitting from post to post along the creek. From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology; here is a recording of the song of a cedar waxwing. The waxwings were back again yesterday. Sunday, March 15th; the real harbingers of spring arrived ~ our red winged blackbirds. David saw them first declaring; "The boys are back!" The males of this species always arrive a few weeks before we see the females. Again from Cornell ~ here's the beautiful song of the Redwinged Blackbird. The birds arrival was cause for celebration on a sunny Sunday. At least it was sunny earlier in the day. Then came the freezing rain and overcast skies, but we'll hold the sunshine in our thoughts till it's back again tomorrow. Little dog and I have been poking our noses into the greenhouse. I survey the left over debris from last years crops and the still frozen ground and look forward to being up to my elbows in the dirt.

Critter Count

A picture we took tonight at about 8pm from the porch. Here is one of 83 swallows we just counted perched along the fence. And some notes from David tonight at 1:45 am . . . Wildlife count - About 10 oclock this morning the mated pair of redtailed hawks flew all the way across the meadow, the lead hawk burdened down by something almost larger than he/she could carry, followed by the excited mate all the way back to the nest high in the tree on the bench above our house. Next a great blue heron flew down the creek landing on the old bridge about a hundred yards from the kitchen window. In the late afternoon a doe quietly browsed her way down the creek that runs by the house, totally unconcerned about our presence or the presence of our dogs. All this amidst a constant flurry of swallows, hummingbirds and blackbirds punctuated with occasional giant circle of an eagle which called a temporary all quiet to the meadow several times today. The heron appeared twice more during the day floating lazily down the creek looking for lunch then dinner. And that's just what we noticed in our busy day.