Harbingers of Spring - tremulous delicate flowers, robins with nests under construction , budding orangey clusters of infant leaves on winter-bare trees, verdant lawns begging to be shorn, snow flurries. Snow flurries??? Yes, May in Michigan brings many surprises. Dug my flip flops out to go get the mail and had to switch to snow boots (well not quite, but covered shoes). Which makes me wonder why such a fuss over garden centers not open until a couple of weeks ago. We don't even try planting until Memorial Day. Must be a lot of green houses out there.
Unrelated fact. Did you know the definition of harbinger is "a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of another". Good. I used it well.
Without a particularly busy schedule one has the luxury of watching the natural order in pure living color. One particular harbinger, robins, have an extremely piercing love/power cry and an extremely industrious life foraging the lawn daylight to dusk. The gender of the bird is quite evident as the females are wobbling around a tad to starboard with a fully loaded belly. Pregnancy is always the same for any female as her growing belly actually makes her question why her feet have disappeared. Feet or no, they have no knees I maintain, they stand patiently listening or feeling for little vibrations in the ground indicating prey on which they immediately pounce. Comical and tragic the epic battle ensues of bird vs worm each tugging for all they're worth. It's hard to know who to root for. Of course the OH muses whether robins could be trained to fetch night crawler bait for him but they tend to pounce, tug and swallow in a heartbeat without regard for others' needs or wishes.
With humans out of the way, along with their infernal machines, animals seem to be taking over and enjoying every minute of it. A fox is running around the neighborhood in full daylight no doubt tracking Oreo and Marigold, two feline buds who hang around the wood pile. My neighbor was fascinated she said watching, probably a ground mole, making its way all the way up the lawn to the backyard noting the little raised furrow it kicked up on its travels. Why didn't she whack it with a shovel? As I say, we're not particularly busy and our reflexes are not quite what they used to be.
After hanging my humming bird feeder up eagerly and unfortunately prematurely (which actually makes sense when I put it that way) I was hoping to catch an early hummer or oriole commuter. After a couple of weeks finally success! Hummer feeding noted at 8:30 am. Always in a mad rush, wings flapping at warp speed, it is apparently still a little chilly to perch for any length of time. More of a fast food stop. But the sighting confirms another step into full-bore Spring.
No comments:
Post a Comment