Sometimes, it seems like nothing is happening in my world. Then I think about what happened this week just a few years ago.
I went outside at 6:30 in the morning, and a screech owl was making its spooky descending whinny. Then robins started singing just after 7:00.
Later Mike reported that he heard a killdeer for the first time and he also believed the mockingbirds might be back. And bluebirds were singing for sure.
The following day, Casey phoned to tell me that eight buzzards were circling above the city park. “Old friends,” he called them, and he described the birds to me as they rode the hard wind up and up. So I went out into the backyard of my house, and there they were, so high that both Casey and I could see them even though we stood a mile apart.
Mosquitoes typically appear with the buzzards. Sure enough, I found a mosquito flying around in our car. As I drove to town, I saw my first groundhog of the spring running through the brown grass. And when I got home, I saw that the koi in our pond had begun to feed, moving about for the first time since December.
I took inventory around the yard and found snow crocus and snowdrops were in full bloom; there were first flowers on several forsythia bushes; daffodils were eight to ten inches tall, and pussy willows were coming out all the way.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the sixth week of Early Spring. In the meantime, think about it. There is a lot happening!
