Spring has sprung
It’s that green, peridot, lime green, my colour theme this month in a photography group. As a background, it is everywhere: the young maple and oak leaves, the new blades of grass, and wildflowers that have yet to bloom. As the season progresses the green shade changes to that deep green of hay fields and forests. It is so vibrant! With it return all the insect eaters, the dragonflies are welcome, eat those mosquitos, please! I don’t think many people realize how far some of these dragonflies migrate! It is astounding that they cover hundreds of miles on these gossamer wings! The Common Green Darner can cover over 900 miles! Not just birds and butterflies, so much we just don’t know! So much to learn!
The chipmunks are foraging for fresh seeds, the snakes slowly winding their way through the shrubs and leaves looking for their next meal as well. A friend in town hosts a yard bunny, too many predators out here to see them during the day but we have our masked bandit making the rounds. She is feeding babies judging by her tum and must be so hungry, she looks like one of last year’s babies, not very big! I have been saving the compost to put out late in the day so the ravens don’t eat everything before she has a chance to find some tasty tidbits! If I’m too late taking the feeders down she does the job for me, as well as polishing off the oriole oranges!
..and we have orioles! So many of them! At one point this week I counted four adult males along with three juvenile males, that was before the ladies showed up! They have their orange marmalade to snack on, occasionally it’s raspberry jam. I just try to buy jars with no artificial ingredients or additives, the dollar store is good for the marmalade, check the no-name brands as well, just read the labels! And their daily orange! Apparently, it’s the most popular snack item! For everyone!
Judging by where the orioles fly we have nests both North and South of us, and then all the hoodlum juvenile orioles just hanging about bothering the serious guys that arrive at the orange with their ladies, don’t want them whisked away by some younger more handsome oriole, do we! Many other birds defend large feeding territories, but orioles defend only the space near their nests, and so you may see several neighboring orioles feeding close to each other.
O is our letter for the day! Ha! Not just orioles though. The Rose Breasted Grosbeaks are such a delightful dash of colour, we have five or six of them about. The juvenile Blue Jays are as large as their parents now and have learned peanuts are put out in the morning! Sadly the Red Bellied Woodpecker came back once or twice, I bought some corn for them, their favourite, but he hasn’t appeared since. Lack of ladies I presume! The flycatchers have returned as well, please let them eat mosquitos as well! PLEASE!
I sat and watched a young Hairy woodpecker working out the intricacies of the seed feeder, then exploring the hummingbird feeder as I sat there, and eventually the bird bath, he did looks a bit lost and Mom came to the rescue eventually! The world goes on by as you sit quietly and watch.
I have to admit to not really hiking the laneway, the bugs have been a bit overwhelming and I am not willing to start a marathon race running from them! I haven’t explored the woods for wildflowers but have been watching what has popped up around the house and lake. The Red Columbines are everywhere! I have never seen so many! The Choke Cherry and Serviceberry bushes are blooming along with our two very sad lilacs, one white, and one purple, that each produces a few blooms. The soil here isn’t exactly fertile, we are on rock.
I’ve hung out near the lilac waiting for the hummingbirds to take a sip but it has been quiet. We have at least one adult male and a juvenile one as well as a female but it seems like there should be more. I look at pictures from previous years and there were, it makes me sad to think in my lifetime I will start to see some species disappear. Humans, the most dangerous species of all…
The skies haven’t been so hot, cloudy when there was aurora (NOOO!!!) and high smoke from all the fires burning in Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan. We had a wild thunderstorm pass to the South of us last weekend, out of the blue it seemed. The first rumble of thunder had me getting up wondering who was driving a dump truck into our laneway, just Mother Nature. She’s funny;) The smoke has made for a few interesting sunrises and the cool mornings had me grabbing a cat for a hand heater after the trip down the stairs to the lake! 4°…cold, but thankfully not cold enough to mess with the tomatoes!
There is something magical about mists! Just a few phoebes and kingbirds to keep me company at the water’s edge! I did finally turn the canoe over and slip it into the water, like right before the thunderstorm, ha, let’s call it a clean-out for the chief bailer! Coffee and sunrise, this view sometimes makes me wonder why I want to go anywhere else, but I do. It’s called six months of Winter! Ha! Next week we get to pick up the trailer, finally fixed, and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg, only an arm:) We will need to have words with Rolling Retreats, the DRV dealer in Elk City. One front hydraulic jack cylinder was installed upside down and two of the Teflon seals were missing. I can understand if the seals went, they could have been faulty, but not missing, and upside down, and they killed our fridge as well…sigh…words later. The rain slowed down our pick-up date, better to give the road a few days to dry out, it’s tight getting in so better to keep it “out of the rhubarb” (out of the ditch!) as they say here in Ontario. The cats will be happy, they love going onboard when it’s parked, it may be my new office! It will get my computer off the dining room table, but then, I’d have to give up that view…so maybe not!
I’ll leave you with one more sunrise, next time I need to get up earlier and take that hot coffee down with me to keep my hands warm, as well as the tripod and camera bag and what else? Ha! I’m a minimalist in the early morning, camera only:) Saludos amigos, Happy Spring!
