The Season of Abundance

Yesterday I went to two farm markets. The first, where I go for lettuce and chard, among other vegetables, was also offering kale, beets, zucchini, fennel, green beans, radishes and salad turnips, all grown on a large plot of land behind a school. It was not offering tomatoes yet but when I asked about buying a couple of green ones to ripen on my window sill (or fry green) I was directed to a greenhouse filled with rows of green tomatoes of different sizes, all of which will eventually become red and luscious. In another greenhouse were peppers, now green but soon to ripen into various colors. 

Apple sauce, 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

The second farm market is where I go to buy peaches and corn, both offered as "our own." I like knowing where the stuff I buy is grown. 

This is July and here in New Jersey the fruits and vegetables are growing fast and furious. My four pepper plants are filled with growing fruits that are still green. The basil is growing like a weed - I've already harvested enough for two batches of pesto and some basil-cheddar biscuits. I have plenty of daisies, coneflowers and others to pick for the table.

There has been an abundance of many things this year.

There has been an abundance of rain following a winter when over two feet of snow buried my yard. There has been an abundance of heat waves, the first in early June and then at least two more into mid-July. The humidity has been abundant, too, making even "cooler" days in the mid-80s feel oppressive. It seems to me this heat and humidity started earlier this year and when the rain falls the scene looks disturbingly tropical for an area considered a temperate zone.

The Stargazer lilies did extremely
well thanks to the rain. (Margo D. Beller)

All that moisture that started in the spring and now the heat have not only led to a bumper crop of my peppers and flowers but also apples. I picked many and then cut off the parts I could use. I had enough apple pieces to fill a large freezer bag. I finally cooked them yesterday after returning from the farm markets. I had four nicely packed pints of apple sauce and there might be more coming because the tree is still not finished (and there seem to be fewer squirrels in the tree, too).

The moisture has brought an abundance of weeds, especially my old nemesis the ground ivy. A couple of Sundays ago I awoke to a cool, dry morning - a rarity this season - and finally tackled some of the mess in the various garden plots including removing spent daffodil foliage, cutting back assorted branches and pulling out the many, many weeds including what seemed like miles of ground ivy. After many hours of labor I'd say I made a dent, but only a dent.

The ground ivy, as usual, was everywhere I didn't want it.
(Margo D. Beller)

There has been abundance in the bird world, too. After a quiet period when many birds were sitting on or guarding nests, there is now birdsong again - robins, cardinals, chipping sparrows, Carolina wren. The catbirds and jays are more actively flying around, using apple and dogwood branches to look for a meal crawling in the grass below. Raucous families of titmice and grackles fly through the trees or search in the grass for a meal.

And there are now two singing house wrens I can hear from my yard - the one using the nest box I put out and one I can hear from a few yards away. 

When the house wren in my yard hears the other one he flies around agitated and sings all the louder. But lately his song has been a little softer, a little shorter in duration. I've been watching the nest box from my perch on the back porch when I can and I've seen a second wren going in and not coming out while the male sings from a nearby branch. A female sitting on eggs. 

This year's house wren doesn't look that different 
from this one from 2016. (Margo D. Beller)

Until today. Today I've seen a lot more activity, birds going into the box and then coming out, so the eggs must've hatched and now there are tiny baby wrens. Feeding, protecting and cleaning up after them are now the parental pair's priorities. In a week or so, the babies should get big enough that the parents will have to feed them from outside the box. In another few weeks, they'll all be gone. This brood is later than in past years and I'm relieved there was one at all after seeing little activity as recently as a month ago.

When it comes to rain, heat and snow, too much of a good thing is too much. But for vegetables, fruit and birdsong, I wish they would continue beyond the summer.

Broken Homes

I've been watching the wren box from my perch on the back porch and I think something has gone wrong.

Robin on nest, 2019 (Margo D. Beller)

By now there should've been signs of a mother house wren feeding young. I had put the box in the dogwood rather than the apple tree as I have in the past in order to keep the squirrels (and me) from bothering the birds when we went to pick the fruit.

I thought the move had worked. The male wren has been singing up a storm from around the property, including the locust trees in front and the apple tree in back. One time I happened to see it singing from the dogwood and going into and out of the box as if feeding a mate.

Admittedly, I do not spend as much time sitting on the enclosed porch as I'd like every day - things like work intervene - so I may be missing something. It would not be the first time. 

It started me thinking about why nests fail.

I'm no scientist, and there are plenty of scientific papers on the subject, but from my observations I have a few theories.

Cooper's hawk nest after it was abandoned, 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

One of the parent birds might've been killed, either because of a predator (cat, snake, another bird, hit by a car) or disease. Maybe all the heavy rain we've had in the last few weeks created an unhealthy condition in the wooden box that made the bird sick or caused it to leave. 

Maybe the nest was in the wrong location. Was the nest more exposed to the sun because the more open canopy of the dogwood did not shade the box enough during the July-like heatwave we had in late May into early June? Or was the female wren intimidated by the larger and potentially dangerous catbirds and jays flying into the dogwood to survey the ground for food?

I think of the robin nest I discovered in my pear tree in 2019. I watched the female build it high enough off the ground that it was partially blocked by the porch roof, and I'd have missed it entirely had I not seen the pair going back and forth to the tree. Once built, the female settled down, presumably on eggs. The male would come by every so often to relieve her so she could get food. Then, the pair was gone. Squirrels would climb the tree and look in and around the nest. Eventually, it fell apart and out of the tree. 

Eggs in the wrong place, Montezuma
National Wildlife Refuge, NY, 2019
(Margo D. Beller)

Were there ever eggs? Did squirrels get at them? More recently I found a robin in her nest on a window ledge in a bird blind built high off the ground. The windows had screens on them so I could look out at her but not disturb her. This nest would be safe. (The one I and, no doubt, others found on a staircase leading to a platform at a nature center in upstate New York might not have been so fortunate.)

Another reason for nest failure? One or both birds were immature. Instinct told them to mate and build a nest but they might not have known what to do next.

An immature male Cooper's hawk may have been the reason last year's nest failed. I watched - with some trepidation - as the male called and swooped as he helped the larger female bring sticks to the top of a very tall maple tree where branches had created a V that would hold a nest. They mated - noisily - and built. The female started spending time on the nest. Then fish crows discovered it. The female chased them off, with some help from the male. Eventually, both took off and the nest was taken by squirrels.

Nest box in the apple tree, 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

Recently an immature redshouldered hawk has been flying and calling around the area and at one point I saw it flying with nesting materials. I have a rough idea where the nest is but I'm not going to search for it. If the nest is successful there will be enough stress without my hanging around.

As for the wrens, I know for sure another cause of nest failure - parasitism, such as when a cowbird puts one of its eggs in the nest and kicks out the resident eggs - is not involved because the box entrance is too small for a female cowbird to get inside, much less lay an egg. Some birds, such as the yellow warbler, build a new nest on top of the old one when it sees a foreign egg, even tho' there may be its own eggs, too.

Nature can be cruel.

House wrens are not considered an endangered species, and there is always the possibility the singing male will find another mate and the various conditions needed for a successful brood may come together. Or they may not.

I'll have to keep watching.

  

Location, Location, Location

In the dawn's gray light, the house wren begins his bubbly, incessant territorial song. He is better than an alarm clock. I listen through the open window, thinking of how I had hoped to sleep in later. Then I remember, I am lucky to be hearing a wren singing at all.

Wren nest box in its new location.
(Margo D. Beller)

Once again the changes in my yard came fast when winter was finally over. Where once the sun would hit me as I sat on my enclosed porch, now the light is filtered through oak and maple leaves. The sun's arc is now wide enough that my chair gets hit by the early and late sun. 

Besides the tree leaves, the shrubs, lawn and perennials came back with a vengeance. The back garden bed I had re-netted after taking off the protective burlap and cutting back the yew shrubs and the other plants quickly filled with fresh leaves and bright pink and purple flowers on the geraniums, coral bells and columbine. In the front yard, the azeleas, lillies and rhododendron were the best I've seen in years thanks to all the rain we had in the spring. Even Spruce Bringsgreen was covered in fresh blue-green foliage.

On May 7 I was still wrapping the pots of peppers I had put out front in plastic sheeting to protect them from the overnight cold. On May 9 we had a heavy rain. On May 10 the yard was filled with warblers, vireos and even a Swainson's thrush. All of them couldn't continue north to their breeding areas because of the bad weather. The birds were in my yard to take advantage of the oak seeds and insects. They fed and sang for only a day or so before continuing on their way.

But not all the migrants left. Some like to stay in my yard. Earlier this month there were still white-throated sparrows calling and singing their "Sam Peabody" song in my yard, where they had spent the winter. Then the catbirds started arriving. Now those sparrows are gone (but will be back next winter) and the catbirds fill the void with their activity and singing.

Back plot filled with blooming
geraniums, coral bells and 
columbine, with feeder.
(Margo D. Beller)

And then there is the migrant bird I watch for every year, the house wren. Every year I hang a wooden nest box in a tree, hoping a pair will use it to have a brood. Sometimes a wren pair will take over the nest box immediately. Some years it takes a little longer. 

Until this year the box was always hung in my apple tree. Last year I had planned on putting it in another location because when the tree is full of apples it is also full of squirrels, other birds and me trying to knock down as many apples as I can for my own use. The wrens would be disturbed. Two years ago there had been plenty of apples. 

But in 2020 I had forgotten my plan and hung the box in the apple tree as usual. However, in the year of the coronavirus the apple did not put out as many flowers to form fruit, so the picking was done by the time the wrens were feeding their young.

This year I did not forget, and I learned there are some differences using a dogwood instead of an apple tree.

Once I read the first reports of house wrens in my area I hung the box on what I thought was a sturdy branch. But the next strong wind had the box swinging wildly, something that didn't happen in the more densely branched apple tree. Luckily, the dogwood had another set of branches that made a natural V where the box could be hung more securely. 

Then I waited. 

Rhododendron (Margo D. Beller)

On May 4, I heard a house wren singing in the backyard. As I watched from the porch he investigated the box. Then he left. Later that day I was on the porch, looked at the box and was horrified to realize the hinged side that allows me to get in there to clear the nest after the birds have flown south for the winter was hanging open! I quickly got my ladder to climb up and shut the box tight so a bird would want to use it.

That's how things stood until May 9 when another house wren came singing into the yard. This one was more promising. He checked out all the feeders, flew into the dogwood and into the box. He stayed around the yard for a few days and at one point I heard the scolding call of his mate answering him. But on May 13 I realized there was no singing, no birds.

On May 15 I went to the box, intending to take it down and put it in the apple tree, even tho' this is shaping up to be another good year for apples. Then I saw the tell-tale twig sticking out from the box, signifying "this is taken." Was it from the pair? Would they be back? I left the box alone. But there was only silence for nearly a week.

Spruce Bringsgreen in his spring coat.
(Margo D. Beller)

On May 21, another male house wren was in the dogwood singing. He went into and out of the box and stayed in the yard all day. The next day he was back singing and his mate was making trips into the box with nesting material. Was this the pair from the other week? I don't know, but this time it looks like they are staying.

The dogwood leaves shade the box from the sun for most of the day (tho' the foliage is not as thick as it is in the apple tree) and the only things to possibly disturb the wrens are catbirds and others that happen to fly to a dogwood branch for some reason. Squirrels wouldn't be interested now, tho' they might be later in the season if there are dogwood fruits, which are small and red and won't be ripe enough to eat until after the wrens have finished their breeding and left the yard. Right now the squirrels are distracted by the apples that are growing and will soon be all over the yard, attracting deer.

As it was in the apple tree, the box is high enough in the dogwood to be free from danger while not so high that I have difficulty putting it up or taking it down. The box is sturdy despite years of dings. It is a good home in a very good location. 

That's why, as of today, Mr. Wren is still singing that bubbly, incessant song in the gray light of dawn. 

Looking Inward

When I sit on my enclosed back porch, I am usually in my favorite old chair in the corner. I can look to my left and see the feeders but my back is to two of the surrounding houses and I try not to look too much at the third house. When I sit on my porch it is to get away from people and not think about the things I must do such as work. Generally, I am sitting there to listen to the birds in the morning, get some sun on my face as I have my first cup of coffee and let my mind wander.

Porch plants in summer (Margo D. Beller)

Today is a gray, foggy, rainy day, making it easy to look inward and ponder life and death. I am facing surgery this week and trying to keep a positive attitude.

Thanks to the coronavirus, I have a lot of time to look within, maybe too much. I have been spending most of my time at home. On days when I should be walking I sit on the porch and listen. I can find in my backyard many of the same birds I'd find elsewhere. Sometimes something unusual will fly overhead, such as a great blue heron or a raven. I can see or hear these through a porch window or if I stand just outside on the patio.

I have always kept to myself, now even more so. I wave at neighbors, they wave back but we don't socialize. People walking in the street make sure they are on the other side of the road if I am walking along. When I go around the block, I am usually more nervous on the one side of the oval that is on a sidewalked street because there anyone approaching prompts a quandary: Do I walk into the street as we pass or will that person? It is easier to walk on my U-shaped street where there are no sidewalks and I can see my house as I approach.

Looking toward the back of the house from my 
corner chair (Margo D. Beller)

From my corner chair I look at the back of my house. But when the weather is consistently warm I will have plants on the porch to keep me company. These plants don't need a lot of direct light and will appreciate the humidity after a dry winter in my front room. It is not that time yet. 

I also look at a row of empty pots in another corner of the porch. They remind me I have cannas to divide and dahlias to plant, plus a small pepper plant and a tomato to put into bigger pots and move outside. 

From my chair I can see the house feeder. Usually
in May rosebreasted grosbeaks pass through. 
These two are males. I hope to
see more this year. (Margo D. Beller)

Spring is a busy time for me. Besides the plants there are the northbound migrants I would like to see and hear, perhaps birds I have not found for quite some time. It is harder for my husband (MH) and me to hike rocky or hilly trails nowadays. Paths should be reasonably flat and, preferably, paved to save balky knees. This can be limiting but I enjoy MH's company and he is helpful in finding snakes and things on the ground while I am scanning the treetops.

I am looking ahead to that time when we can go out more and not worry about who is near us and whether we have on masks. I'm even looking at the compost pile, which hasn't been turned in too long, with some degree of expectation. But mostly I'm looking within, wondering if I have everything arranged in case the worst happens. As I said, I'm trying to stay positive, but it is not easy. 

Putting Things in Order

When February's snows finally receded in March, I could no longer ignore the devastation of last winter. Branches of shrubs were bent low. Fence posts were askew. Some of the deer netting had been pulled down under the snow's weight or pushed up by hungry deer looking for any food they could find.

March 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

When the snow was gone and the weather became unusually warm for March it was time to put things in order.

All of the plants are perennials and can take care of themselves. Once the snow was gone, the snowdrops and crocuses popped up, albeit a month late. When the temperature jumped into the upper 60s and low 70s, these faded but the daffodils and irises, which had been poking their noses up from the soil, jumped out and, in the case of the daffs, are blooming. Several types of weeds have also come up with no help from me, and a few dandelions are blooming between the cracks in the paving stones on the front walk.

The apple and pear trees plus the shrubs are now either leafing or blooming. To some the bright pink of the quince may look garish next to the yellow of the forsythia in the backyard but I don't mind it at all.

There is more birdsong: cardinals, robins, song sparrows. I am now hearing chipping sparrows and chipmunks, the former welcomed for its dry trill, the latter not so much because of the digging they do even behind the deer netting.

Hellebore. Since I took this
picture it is now flowering.
(Margo D. Beller)

But there are things that need human attention. The butterfly bush and liriope needed to be cut back in early March and are now growing again. Same with the dried ornamental grasses I hacked down and now showing green growth. At some point I have dahlias to pot and cannas to divide. 

Finally, there was the fencing. After the deer found a weakness in the netting and were able to nearly destroy the euonymous bushes in front yet again, I cut everything back, reinforced and tied the netting and fastened it down with garden "staples." Had I known what to expect when I put in these yellow and green evergreen shrubs, I'd have put in something less appetizing to deer.

The area most in need of repair, however, was in back where I cover the netting with burlap to protect the yew shrubs behind. Out of sight, out of trouble is my motto. With these shrubs are other plants that don't need a lot of sun including two pots of hostas I took in for a friend and a hellebore that has bloomed despite the soil being more acidic than it would like. The joe-pyes grow here, as do a pot of perennial geranium, coral bells that attract hummingbirds and a few fringed bleeding hearts.

Repurposing the garden hose
(Margo D. Beller)

It was a job that took many hours because I had to cut back the yews and remove debris from the potted plants. Then the burlap had to be removed, the garden staples pulled up and the deer netting untied or cut off. New netting was put on (doubled above and below) the posts that I thought weren't too bent or shredded from use. I took new, thick garden ties to secure it above and many more garden staples to do the same below. It is both aggravating and calming work that allows me to be outside and listening to the birds.

Finally, I took the old garden hose and put it in to block an opening. Many years ago, a deer got behind the netting and then tried to leave. I woke up to find half the netting was in the yard. Luckily, that was the day I had planned to put in new posts anyway. More recently, a doe put her newborn fawn in back. I had to pull up the posts to let it out. Around that time we got a new hose and so the old one became a deer barrier. (The other end is close to a leader pipe so I can tie the netting to it.)

It is a good feeling to put things in order. When it becomes really hot and things start to overgrow the neatness will disappear. Soon my husband (MH) and I will have to bring out the canna and dahlia pots and get them behind the netting somehow. Weeds will fill the spaces between the plants and create a green carpet I don't need along the walkways. For now I enjoy this feeling of accomplishment when I look at my handiwork.

Backyard daffodils, 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

Nowadays I am putting other things in order, in my life. I will be having cancer surgery in the coming week, a repeat of surgery I had five years ago. I am five years older now, survived a visit to the emergency room because of blood clots and am living in a time when the coronavirus pandemic shows no signs of ending, even with more people (including me) getting vaccinated. I can be hopeful I come through but there is always that possibility something will go wrong. So I am making lists for MH and talking, virtually and via social media, to good friends and family ahead of time. I am writing here. 

Daffodils are blooming, birds are singing. There is so much more to be done. I am looking ahead, but not too far.

Corvid Conversations

The other morning I went out to hang the bird feeders and heard a soft, repetitive call that turned out to be a male goldfinch, molting into his bright yellow and black breeding plumage, high atop a tree in my yard singing to a female high in a tree at the front curb. She, too, was changing into breeding plumage - from winter brown to yellow and green to better blend into the foliage while on her nest. I was eavesdropping on pair bonding.

This morning, I eavesdropped on something very different. This was not pair bonding but a loud conversation, such as what I hear when people are running or bicycling together, to the point of being aggravating. I was on my back porch and was hearing fish crows - eight of them, as it turned out - atop another yard tree. This was not the angry or alarmed cawing of crows when a hawk is in the vicinity. This was just crow talk - a short, nasal caw that sounds like "uh-uh." After a while they flew off to another tree and them eventually left the area. 

Fish crow, Cape May, NJ, 2011 (RE Berg-Anderson)

Crows, of the corvid family, are social creatures. Where you see one, you'll usually see (and hear) more, sometimes in very large flocks. In that way they are similar to their cousins the blue jays, which also travel in noisy family groups.

In my part of the world there are two kinds of crows. There is the American crow and the smaller fish crow. The American is what we think of when we see a "crow" - large, raucous, chasing predators or other, unwanted creatures away, ripping apart garbage bags for what's inside.

As the name implies, the fish crow can be found near water. That is where I saw my first one many years ago. These all-black birds are otherwise hard to differentiate from the American crow unless you hear them or see the two types together - the American is always larger. (Their cousin the raven is larger still.)

That I am seeing and hearing fish crows at all in my neighborhood is a relatively recent, semi-disturbing phenomenon.

All crows are omnivores, meaning they'll eat anything from berries to garbage to dead chipmunks. They are active in the morning when they are hungriest. That is when you will hear them the loudest as they scope out easy to access food sources.

It may not look like it, but jays are related to the corvid
family. (Margo D. Beller)

When I was a kid growing up in coastal Brooklyn, I knew that if I saw gulls whirling in the skies above my house there must be a storm approaching, forcing the birds inland. Now that I live much farther inland, I see gulls all the time. These gulls have learned it is much easier to dive into the open dumpster behind a fast-food place than to fly over the open ocean looking for fish.

The fish crows have learned this, too.

In my area there are several distinct groups of fish crows clustered in the vicinity of food places with lots of garbage going into the dumpsters. The group closest to my house, which centers itself on the local Quik-Chek, sometimes flies along a brook that flows behind the neighbors' houses across the street. These are the ones I hear in the morning, particularly on garbage pickup day. There is another, larger group that hangs out in an area on the edge of town where they can fight the gulls to pick from the dumpsters behind a supermarket on one corner, a fast-food place on another corner and a shopping mall including several food places on a third. (A restaurant is going up on the fourth corner.)

So the crows, like the gulls, are following the garbage because members of the corvid family are very smart and they know where the pickings are easiest and most fruitful. Suburbia provides lots of favorable habitat conditions, including abundant food.

Take the fish crow pictured above. My husband (MH) and I were in Cape May, NJ, one September and I heard a fish crow calling outside our motel room. I looked out the window and there it was, perched on the railing. I opened the door. It did not fly off. In fact, it looked at me with what I would say was a very human look of expectation. MH took its picture. It still didn't fly off. We realized it was sitting on the railing of our balcony room waiting for us to provide its breakfast, the way many other occupants of this room (and perhaps others) had been doing possibly for generations. 

Even though this crow was literally within sight of the Atlantic Ocean, it was waiting for us to serve it. We went back inside and eventually it flew to another railing where maybe the occupant would be more generous. 

Fish crow on the beach with laughing gulls, which also
like to pick garbage out of dumpsters. September 2013
(RE Berg-Andersson)

(There are many reasons I don't feed birds, aside from what I put into feeders in the backyard. You could say I'm selective in what birds I care to feed or that I don't feel the need to show my human mastery over dumb critters, as I see many do. But mainly it is because I know birds like crows will find their own food just fine.) 

Corvids like the fish crow are extremely intelligent. They have large brains capable of memorizing human faces, using tools and solving problems. Young crows will play, swinging from branches or floating in the wind, according to the Cornell Ornithology Lab. They are a species far from threatened by hunting or disease. In fact, their numbers are increasing to the point of them becoming a real pest. Luckily for these crows, they are protected by the Migratory Bird Act even though like the Canada geese - another bird that found suburbia to its taste - they don't exactly migrate in the same way as other types of birds such as warblers.

So what exactly were the fish crows talking about so loudly this morning? They could've been discussing the next place where they could get a meal. They could've been telling another crow I couldn't see to get out of the area. (There was one American crow calling in the distance.) Maybe they were discussing the weather or whether they should go down the shore for a change of pace. Or maybe they were just idly chattering. 

After they left, I started to hear loud human chattering, and that is when I left, too.

Resurfacing

It is hard to believe that a month ago - Valentine's Day - my neighborhood was buried under two feet of snow from the nor'easter Feb. 1. There were several snow storms in February and we were in perpetual white all month. It was only in March the weather started to warm, culminating in one day when the temperature reached nearly 70 degrees F. Now, only the smallest bits of icy snow remain in the shady areas. 

Feb. 22, 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

With the end of the snow, some good and bad things resurfaced.

I looked outside one day and saw one yellow crocus in an area where there should've been more. I quickly yanked away a pot I had put behind the deer netting and there were the rest of them, which had come out of the ground and struggled under the weight of the pot. In a few days they recovered, and with them came some purple crocus. These flowers usually come up in February but were now making up for lost time.

In another bed, the snowdrops - another early bloomer - suddenly appeared and flowered a month late. They are sharing the area with many daffodils, my favorite flowers because of their diversity and their not being palatable to deer or chipmunks. The irises are showing signs of life, as are the rhododendron and the azeleas. The maple trees have started to flower, too.

Those are the good things. But there are also bad.

A deer (I'm pretty sure it was the same one) found a weakness in the netting and devoured every leaf of the yellow and green euonymous bushes. Best as I can figure, a deer put its head through an area not well fastened down the first time. Then, when I fixed that, it got up on its hind legs and pushed the netting down until it could reach over and eat more bushes. Finally, after I fixed that it went around to the side to get the last two it couldn't reach before.

Crocuses, March 14, 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

I went out and chopped the bushes back as far back as I could, something I'll be sure to do next autumn. (I know from experience they will grow back.) The netting has been reinforced and more poles put in to fix what the deer's actions bent. Now there is nothing that will interest a hungry deer until the sedum start to grow.

Let's go back to the good.

While I worked to cut back ornamental grasses and the butterfly bush over the past week I could hear plenty of birds singing or calling - robins, cardinals, a song sparrow, redbellied woodpecker, even one of the earliest migrants, the redwinged blackbird. Very large flocks of grackles flew over, not stopping in my area as they did last February. This morning several skeins of Canada geese were flying north. These are the wild geese, not the ones that have made their home in office parks. Those geese will fly up and around and land, knowing they are supposed to move but not knowing why. The wild geese know the frozen ponds in the north are melting.

Snowdrops (Margo D. Beller)

Now that the snow is gone and the air is warming, more people are walking, and that reminds me I have to get back to walking, too. I did not walk much on my town streets in the cold and the park trails were inaccessible to me because of the deep snow. That snow is now gone, as I discovered this morning. COVID-19 has kept many of us indoors, although we used the cold and snow as an excuse, and so it felt good to walk my favorite trail again to see and hear the birds, not all of which I could've also heard in the backyard.

Finally, now that it is easier for us all to get around, I must take the feeders in at night. It was early one morning at the end of March 2015 I opened my kitchen curtains and saw only one of two feeder poles, the other bent to the ground. I have been bringing the feeders in at night ever since except for when thick snow covers in winter, when the bears should be hibernating. (Six months later, on a warm, sunny, late afternoon, I saw a bear pass through my yard after taking down an arm of the other feeder pole as it tried to take off the house-shaped feeder.) The bears will emerge from their dens hungry and, if a male, seeking new territories. So I'm back to taking feeders in at night.

However, the need to put out feeders in the morning gets me out of bed - resurfacing, you could say - and allows me to hear the birdsong, which will only increase as northbound migrants pass through in the next month. So it's not all bad.

Defoliated shrub (Margo D. Beller)