Rewinding Spring

I am back from Tennessee, one cute little grandson added to the family tree, and just like last year, it comes as a bit of a shock to go from the full tilt spring into summer that one finds in TN in April to the, “I am possibly thinking of budding” spring you find on Cape Cod in April.

In TN everything was in bloom, the dogwoods which are everywhere there, went from bare branches to flowers,
the maples shot out helicopter seeds to cover the back yard and unfurled their leaves over the three weeks. Bird song reached near deafening proportions. There must be at least 4 or 5 pairs of cardinals trying to out sing each other in my daughter’s yard and they got at it as early as dawn would allow and never let up all day.
I hit a spate of insomnia and found the bird song continues through the night with mockingbirds taking up where the cardinals left off.

Last year I wrote about the hundreds of grackles and starlings and cowbirds that have made a patch of bamboo in their neighbors yard their roosting place. It was just as fascinating this time watching them gather in large numbers in nearby tree tops and then plummet down into the bamboo to claim their spot for the night. Making a racket the whole time. And the process was reversed in the morning. Dawns early light, more racket, everyone getting their marching orders for where they were flying off to that day and off they would go.

Back home, just as after Australia it seemed the dozen or so birds at the birdfeeder at any time paled next to the 1,000’s of parrots that congregated there, now my singing cardinals seem quiet by comparison. Sweet to watch the male feeding the female, so while in TN nests were well under way, here we are perhaps still in the courting phase.
The dawn chorus is growing though, my wrens and song sparrows join in, and the “peter peter” of titmice gets ever increasing but still, nothing to rattle you out of bed as those TN tunesters were doing.

I hear osprey are back on the bogs,
though I have yet to see them, the mute swan I drive by is on her nest and crows have been flying by with sticks in their mouths since I left in late March. The temps which in TN were often in the 80’s are back in the 50’s here so once again one adjusts to the ricochet of climate. And I hear, when the temperature of the water in the Bay equals the temperature of water in the streams nearby, the herring and alewives will be on their way. Spring will be playing it forward here on the Cape.

Wherever you are, I hope there is some sense of newness in the air, bright colors of spring, songs of the birds and an Easter that frames it all with new life. May we all find some reason to rejoice!