What Greta said

Someone flipped a switch.   Though I have been paying attention, quite intently, I missed it.   The robins, cardinals, and few goldfinches who stuck around this winter, have come alive and started telling us things.  I am not sure what they are saying, but it sounds to my ready ears like they are gurgling about spring.  Though the cardinals began their springsongs in January I ignored them, knowing they every year begin calling for mates far too early to really mean anything.  Optimists.

But last week, while traversing new river territory, I caught the sound of robins singing in the way only they can.   And each day since, they have been coaxing the new season along on the thread of their golden tongues.  Goldfinches, who for unknown reasons stay in our yard all winter, added their voice this afternoon while I filled the feeders, talking about summer and nestlings, open water on the pond and hollyhock seeds.    I am listening.

Visually, things are slower to show themselves.  While buds are swelling a bit on the maples, there is little other sign.  Earlier in the week we spied a fly of some kind, looking like a shrunken cranefly, resting on the snow in the woods.  I know nothing about the provenance of flies such as she, so have no idea if she hatched off the water, out of a log crevice, or has been hibernating all winter.  Matters not, though; the joy of a seeing a winged insect was enough.

On a welcome 40 degree afternoon last week, my eye caught movement in the sky, black forms high up and laid against the blue.  Six crows were quite obviously playing in the air, chasing one another, making great earthbound swoops, picking up the next thermal, and lifting again into the sun.  I was jealous of their open disdain for the name of the month and their lack of need to stay on roads.  The  sky was theirs and they made good use of it. I did my best to drive and pay attention to the road and the birds at the same time, but kicked myself later for not just pulling over to watch.  Did getting home ten minutes later really make any difference?  Kola would be waiting at the window either way, and what might I have witnessed if I had tarried a while to watch?     I am sure they were crows from home--I see six together quite often within a two mile radius of the house--I have seen them bothering a roosting red-tail, wandering a soccer field for lunch, leaving their roost as I drive to school, and chasing a Coop across a busy intersection, one lined up behind the other oblivious to anything but their game.


Alas, come Monday morning, with an expected 10 inches of new, unwelcome, and heavy snow to bust through, I am going to have to shelve my spring thoughts for awhile.    Yet, with each day of sun and afternoon of birdsong we creep a little closer to the real deal.

On a completely unrelated note, I received some revelatory information from Greta recently. Her Saturday volunteering hours at a close friend's avian rehab facility result in countless bits of intriguing information, but this is by far the best yet. Woodpeckers smell like rotting logs. After some thought,  it made perfect sense, but was nonetheless completely fascinating.     She was sad to say that the information came secondhand, as she has never personally smelled a woodpecker, but doing so is very near the top of her "to do" list.    And now, thanks to her, it is also at the top of mine.