The Red-Winged Blackbirds have returned!
"The blackbirds are among our earliest visitors in the spring; they come in flocks and beset our leafless trees like punctuation marks, meanwhile squeaking like musical wheelbarrows." (From the Handbook of Nature Study, pg. 117)
All morning these birds have been in our trees and under our feeders. They are flocking with shiny-headed grackles and right alongside starlings and robins.
Once we spied the blackbirds, we knew to start listening! Their song is quite distinctive. So we opened our north-facing windows so we might hear the woods better ... and sure enough, we heard them!
This sighting is such a glorious reminder that spring is not that far away! We'd best pull out our bird guides, as the spring migrant season is obviously underway. The year's rhythm is a lovely combination of the new and familiar - even though pretty much the same things happen every year, we are always caught by surprise. But to refresh my memory, I'm going to pop over to my Nature Corner and check out my spring archives from last year. ;)
A bright day here, - almost, but not quite 50 degrees. Have a good one, my friends!
