April in Autumn

Just stepped outside for the second walking of the potato-bombing-floor-piddler. Found a wonder. First walkies involved dark, army-drab, lumbering clouds obscuring what should have been an incipient sunrise. It was drizzling. One of those hunch your shoulders and get on with it moments.

Now, the sun is up. The air is warm and moist and fragrant, redolent with earth, leaves, and green things....we still have not had a killing frost.

Sweet!

And the birds! Birds everywhere. Red-winged blackbirds hurrying urgently north or west, probably in hot pursuit of corn as yet unharvested. Starlings by the hundred hurtling toward a dead elm, the better to roost and chatter. Jays, gold finches, doves and crows.

Earnest little downy woodpeckers chipping away at seed pods and twigs. A robin chuck-chuck-chucking from the highest branch of the honey locust.

Yellow rumped warblers simply everywhere. Fighting, flighting, flourishing their tail patches. And lots and lots and lots of everything else you could imagine. 

The whole valley is seething with birds, hustling, bustling, chipping, cheeping and chortling. Like money in the bank that the government can't spend. I love it.