Earth Day

Here's what is going on in our little part of the planet this spring. 

The weather is abysmal, although we certainly would have enjoyed a day like this back in February. It is cold, and wet, and grey. All day, every day.

We are seeing a few flowers, a scattering of crocuses....now gone, one hyacinth, some squill and daffodils.

Migration seems to be lagging as well. Or maybe I just stink at finding warblers. Other people are logging all sorts of goodies, but so far we have seen a single Yellow-rumped Warbler on one hike and a flock of nine of same, in full breeding plumage and lovely with it, on another.

But where is my Palm Warbler? Didn't get one last year and so far none this year either.....

Yesterday we had the biggest congregation of Black-capped Chickadees I have ever seen though. There were thirteen on one set of feeders at one time, and a mess more in the trees. We have around six at the house all the time...tame enough to take seeds from my hand...and a few more elsewhere on the farm. However, this flock is plumb weird. There were as many as six on the red spiral feeder at one time...so many they were crowding each other off as they fluttered for a spot.

There are still quite a few of them here today. Two, which are no doubt our locals, landed on my hand as soon as I went out to fill feeders. Always makes my day.

Not a single White-crowned Sparrow though...of course I am jumping the gun on them so early...didn't see the first one until the second week in May last year, but some years they are here for most of April.

The boss bought me a forsythia bush.... He was lamenting the one he planted for his mother when he was 11. He was instructed to plant if at the corner of the old house over on the home farm and did so.

Except that it was the wrong corner and she was a bit wrathful because there were pipes there that she feared the bush would damage. It didn't.

The house has fallen into its own cellar hole now, and the driveway and the yard and that particular corner are gone as well, scooped away when the road was rebuilt. We thought the bush was gone as well, not having seen it in a while.

This is a bit that has sometimes been in our Christmas Bird Count Territory
(it has changed over the years)
Sure looks different in April than it does in December...

However, I walked over there the other day in a spitting rain and saw, down the creek and through the trees, a massive mound of yellow. We looked yesterday, and somehow the bush was shoved over near the creek. A second bit is growing on the edge of the artificial cliff....we always meant to transplant it, but I think it would be a pretty dangerous undertaking these days. Thus the new one. Plus a placement committee to decide on its location.

Forsythias are tough, but that one has outdone itself.