A Semi-Tropical Weekend

The most clear and obvious sign of spring, or climate change, over the long weekend, was certainly the weather.  It hit 70 on Saturday, and was in the 60's Sunday and Monday.  The next 2 days, at least, promise to be as warm.
Here are some other signs of spring that I saw this weekend:
Showdrops -- these have probably been up for quite a while, I just haven't looked.

Photo 2/18/17

It was probably a great weekend for birders.  Even as a not-birder, I noticed that there was a lot of activity... things that are here all winter were just active and noisy.  I saw robins (which used to be a harbinger or spring) and killdeer abounded.  We are technically in the summer range of the killdeer, according to Cornell, but we're so close to the year-round range that seeing them now isn't necessarily hugely significant.  There were ducks, mallard and otherwise, swimming in the open waters.  Red-wing black birds were all over, their calls piercing the air.  (I know that photo isn't clearly recognizable as a RWBB, you'll have to trust me on that!)

Photo 2/18/17

Silver maples always have early-swelling buds, but these ones are definitely opening and letting their flower parts show:

Photo 2/18/17

I also saw my first woolly bear of the spring.  I also saw a millipede, and we had a little cranefly in our house.

Photo 2/20/17

Watch Out!

It's started... I'm being attacked frequently by vicious and persistent redwing  black birds. My new tactic is to take my keys, which are on a lanyard so I can wear them around my neck, and swing them like a helicopter blade over my head. It seems to scare them, and if it doesn't, they'll get caught or hit with it... And if they get through, they deserve to get me. Still, not looking forward to 2 months of fending off these attacks!

In other news, water lilies are blooming:

Bird Brained

So yesterday... a small group of Sandhill Cranes flew overhead, heading north.  I didn't get my phone out and on in time for a photo, but they were pretty unmistakable.

This morning, I heard something else unmistakable... a piercing call in the crisp morning air.  At first I just kept walking, then I did a sort of double take.  Wait!  That was a red-wing black bird!  I found him in the tree but this little photo was the best I was going to do, picture-wise.  I heard the call several more times, though... tomorrow's winter storm, if it happens, may be a shock to all these guys!  

Lasts?

I put a sumac leaflet next to this tiny snapping turtle so you could tell how small it was -- body inch and a half, maybe? 

Here is a list of things I saw this weekend that might be "lasts" for 2015:

• a monarch butterfly
• a dragonfly
• a turtle
• a snake
• a cicada (saw it, not heard it.  It looked fine, but technically, I didn't check for signs of life and it might have been dead.)
• a toad and a frog (which I don't think will be the last...)
• weather in the 70's (upper 70's on 10/10/15)

I would also like to say a word about red-wing black birds.  I certainly don't associate them with fall... I think of their distinctive shrill calls piercing the March chill as signs of spring-to-come.  I think of the constant threat of being dive-bombed as mid-summer perils.  But they fade away in the fall.  I noticed a lot of them this weekend, though, in flocks, even.  They were vocalizing but not a lot or loudly/distinctively.  They were near the trail but didn't appear at all interested in harming me (thank goodness!).  I guess they're getting ready for their winter retreat... 

Catkins can!

Alder catkins swelling.

Aspen catkins are getting inciting, too...

Also... What a difference a day makes... The red wing blackbirds that last week I heard but couldn't see, then saw a few... Now there are armies of them, epaulettes on fiery red display, yelling at me wherever I go.

Ani, I just found this amusing:

Think there were any hungry rabbits here this winter?

Red wing black bird

Their calls pierce the chill morning air. First heard them yesterday; today they're downright plentiful.

Welcome, Sun!

The snow flurries are flying and there are ice-fishermen on the lake... but today at 11:57 am local time, the sun will be directly over the equator, and then... we welcome the sun back to the northern hemisphere!  Or more accurately, we celebrate the fact that our northern hemisphere is, once again, tilted toward the sun (because if course, the sun didn't change anything...)

Equinoxes and solstices have been celebrated in cultures throughout the world since ancient times; we join in a long human tradition as we recognize this day!

Other things to note (besides the snow flurries)... I wish I had more to report on this first official day of spring! 

Silver maple flower buds are very swollen. 

RWBBs are all over!

In my yard, bulb plants (daffodils, crocuses) have emerged from the soil... 

There Are Signs!

A few updates:

1.  Sandhill Cranes are flying north... This afternoon I heard their unmistakable, primitive call, and felt a shadow as they flew between me and the sun.  I looked up to see a "v" of about 40 of them.

2.  I heard a red-wing black-bird, but I couldn't for the life of me find it.  (By the next day -- Mar 18 -- they were all over!)

3.  Plants are starting to do things, too... slowly, to be sure, but there are some aspen catkins emerging.

My Seasonal Update

I haven't been motivated to blog lately... but that doesn't mean I haven't been making notes about the appearance (or lack thereof) of spring... and sometimes composing poetic paragraphs in my head that never make it onto paper (keyboard).  Finally, however, I feel the need to have a record of data that I can look back on.  

Winter may have started weak this year, but it ended strong.  There was a weak in early March when the ground was covered with a foot of snow -- we had 2 largish late-winter snowfalls -- and everyone was walking around talking about how last year on this day it was 80 degrees.  None of that in 2013.  Spring is arriving reluctantly.  I can only hope that means when it comes, it will park itself firmly, not let winter creep back in!

Yesterday was ice off... the latest ice off in the past 7 years at least.  Here's the data I've kept, indicating that we're over a month past last year's date, weeks later than average... and indeed, it's the only April ice off date I've seen!

2006 -- Mar 10

2007 -- Mar 18

2008 -- Mar 31

2009 -- Mar 9

2010 -- Mar 18

2011 -- Mar 18

2012 -- Feb 22!

2013 -- April 4!

Meanwhile, plants are similarly slow compared to last year.  In 2012, spring ephemerals flowered in March -- we had violets and Pasqueflower, bloodroot and others... This year... not a lot.  Crocuses are in full bloom, daffodil and tulip leaves are out with frost-burned tips, but they're not that tall yet.  There's no green haze across the water as willows get that springy green... even the catkins have been slow to swell.  (Vernal witch hazel is in bloom, and silver maples have flowered... that's about it that I've noticed, plant-wise.)  Redwing black birds are about the only thing that kept to the normal spring schedule this year.

Yesterday, I saw a cluster of ants surrounding something on the sidewalk, and last weekend when we went for a walk, some gnatty things were flying around my head, so I guess the insect workld is starting to come back to life, too. 

OK, back to work!  

A Spring Tweet, Etc.

This morning, I arrived at work to a beautiful, though thin, coating of sparkly snow.  Across the crisp air rang out the distinctive calls of red-wing blackbirds... a sign of spring for certain.  (For some of us, "tweet" is still the noise a bird makes!)  So for me personally, March 5 was the first RWBB of 2012, but I know that I was late...

I spent last week in Colorado at the Green Schools Conference, and then came home and spent the weekend sick in bed.  I've heard reports of RWBB sightings as early as Feb 29.

Some photos from a hike outside Boulder, CO, last week.

Another mysterious stripey world...

The Signs are Starting!

I just love setting up for my classes in the morning. I get to go out, alone, which I really don't have time to do before work and [honestly] may not be motivated to do if I didn't have work. I experience the morning while hanging signs or leaving props in their places for later. It starts out as a pain, I'll admit... it makes my morning rather rushed... but once I get bundled up and get out there, it seems like every morning something wonderful happens.

Today, I brought my camera. I know... before I was all about my larger moment with the universe... but forget that. I want evidence. I was keeping an eye out for my bluebird friends. I didn't see them, but that's OK. Besides my daily chickadee and crow companions, this morning I also saw a robin -- the former harbinger of spring -- and a red wing blackbird -- a more accurate harbinger of spring.

This is he in the tree top. The visual may have been somewhat distant and not great, but the audio was crystal clear. I heard his call before I spotted him, a tiny bit... out of place on a cold day in the snow, perhaps... usually the first one is on one of those anomalously warm and sunny days... but there it was. (A friend reported seeing one on Tuesday, I believe, but this morning was my first. And second and third. When they come out to play, they really come out to play!)

Last night's dusting of snow (or sleet, more accurately) left quite a story to read in the morning. It's always just crazy to me to see how many animals are out and about in the night, and where they've gone... this morning I was on the same path as a skunk for most of my route... I must've stepped over the trail 10 times.

Skunk prints.

The skunk crossed paths with a coyote (actually, several)...

...and some squirrels...

And just to complete the circle, the coyotes also crossed paths with the squirrels, though clearly not actually at the same time. I also saw vole tracks out there. All these in 20 minutes and within a couple hundred yards of the school! It was a good morning...

Falling into Spring?

I suppose the sight of a redwing blackbird, silhouetted against a bright blue sky, sitting proud on the highest branch of the aspen tree should be a vision of March or October. I guess their clear whistles slicing through the crisp air should remind me of spring or of fall... but really, I hear that noise and I think of early March, that first sunny day when it's still very cold but it feels quite warm, comparatively speaking. That day when the redwings first show themselves and you know that you're out of the woods... it's all downhill from there, so to speak... it seems a little wrong to hear it now, knowing that the cold months are just beginning. But here they are, five of them this morning, all perched atop trees, their calls piercing he chill. The message this time? We have a long trek through slush and ice ahead of us!

Also, still seeing a lot of robins and grasshopper. Can't think that I've seen a dragonfly in a while...

Worth a Thousand Words

Bird Brained

This morning was perfectly calm -- not a bit of wind to ripple the water -- and warm. Despite a full cloud cover, the sky was bright. Birds must have loved the weather, as I had a bird-filled morning. (Birds... one thing for which my point-and-shoot camera, carried in a pocket and pulled out discreetly during class, is really inadequate.)

This coot was swimming in the pond this morning, along with several mallards, one of whom is reflected in the water at the top of the photo.

Red-wind black birds were out in huge flocks, and very talkative. Their calls sound like March to me, if March can have a sound, although obviously theirs is a spring arrival announcement AND a fall going-away call.

That little duck-shaped dot in the center is a grebe. I spent some time watching them go under and re-appear in different places. I could watch diving ducks for hours as they disappear and pop back up. First grade students, though, have about 3 minutes of duck watching in them. (Also note: by late morning, the water is less mirror-like and the wind is causing a bit of a chill...)

I saw 4 herons this morning, but none in such a strange position as this fellow, who actually camouflages perfectly with the roof upon which he is perched.

Other bird sightings this morning, which went unphotographed: a bluebird, on a bluebird box, looking grayer than usual, but still definitely blue. And a bunch of LBBs, goldfinches, etc.

In the non-avian world, these things were all over the edge of the pond. I suspect they are frog eggs, which may not make it, as they are on the shore. The lake levels were very high last week with all the rain we've gotten and are starting to recede. I guess these almost future frogs got stranded. (Anyone know more about what these are? Let me know!)

This is our car katydid from yesterday. It was on the windshield. So cute.

They're back!

Spring arrives on the wings of a red-winged blackbird.  As I walked outside this morning, I heard the familiar call, the indescribable trill... I can't describe it, but you can here it here... and I headed to the lake.  Before I even got close, I could see one, sitting on the tallest branch of a bur oak tree. He spread his tail, bobbed his head, and gurgle-yelled at me.  But that wasn't the original speaker; he was to my left in the old cattail reeds.  They are all over!

Of course, this means I missed the pioneer, the first brave boy back.  (And I definitely missed the even braver female pioneers, who should have returned -- quietly -- in advance of the males.)  But now, they're here in full force, and spring can safely arrive.

Actually, red-winged blackbirds apparently stay in this area all winter (as the range map at the above link clearly shows).  But in the winter, they hunker down and leave the wetland areas.  So in fact, they haven't returned to the area, but they have returned to their summer/breeding homes.

And welcome home, I say!