Spring fever

This early Spring has made me lazy.  Yesterday slipped away without a post and it wasn't for lack of photos or interest.  Both days were sunny with a nippy breeze, especially Saturday.  The oak, peach, and redbuds flowered, the wild cherry began to leaf out, and buds burst on a dogwood.  Sweet gum buds looked ready to pop and I found fig leaves!  Buds were visible on the blueberries but not yet open.  Fortunately there were early bumblebees. 

The female orioles remained and a male showed up.  At least two bluebird pairs visited the feeders.  Myrtle warblers fussed over pecking order.  Blue jays stuffed their beaks.  Downy woodpeckers were faithful to their suet.  Starlings scattered food everywhere.  Red-winged blackbirds were much better behaved.  A few robins remained from the flock in the pecan. 

Pelicans fished on the creek but I never got a good shot. The sun reached a lot more of the patio and flowerbeds.  The moon was well up and looking fat by the time I took my library books back on Saturday.  

A mockingbird greeted the Sunday sun.  Then a blue jay wanted breakfast.  Orioles started arriving, then bluebirds.  Robins came back to drink.  The female orioles were much more assertive with the male than they were a month ago.  He definitely ate last.  Red-winged blackbirds briefly returned.  And of course there were starlings.  

I saw a junco.  A white breasted nuthatch was more interested in suet than seeds. The first grackle I've seen in years popped up but didn't stay long.  And a cedar waxwing accompanied a robin to the birdbath!  

Wood ducks

At last, the plastic came off the windows in the morning.  Mid day was beautifully warm and sunny.  Something dug lots of little burrows in the front grass.  They look like anthills but I suspect ground nesting bees.  I did see a couple of ants walking up a window. 

The array of flowers had changed a lot in four days.  The early daffodils were nearly done and even the dutch hyacinths were past their prime.  I went around the house to admire the redbuds and upset some birds who thought that was their space.  A myrtle warbler peeked at me over a magnolia branch.  Both the redbuds and a peach sapling were in bloom.  Violets, buttercups, and birdseye bloomed in the grass.  I could see flower buds on azaleas.  Even the moss had sent up spore stalks.  

Fewer turtles were out than yesterday.  A young brown pelican flew upstream and returned not much later.  After I was back inside I notices a pair of wood ducks at the water's edge.  Unfortunately a clump of wild onion kept confusing the camera.  Then I spotted a second pair about ten feet away.  All four ducks were having a spa day, bathing and preening, and also snuggling.  Wood ducks dive quite well I observed.  Eventually the first pair sailed away and the second pair hopped onto the dock for a rest.  A mallard drake was hanging around, probably up to no good.  The wood drake came to the same conclusion.  I'm not so sure about the female, though she got in the last word.  We really need to get a wood duck box! 

I startled pileated woodpeckers that fled too fast for me.  A red bellied woodpecker was also wary, but I managed not to offend.  The sky clouded up as the afternoon grew later so I gave up on greeting the full moon. 

Thunder and lightning

Rain started up again early and turned into a thunderstorm before we finished breakfast.   When the rain ended, the temperature climbed past 80.  The heat had flowers opening or wilting.  The yellow daffodils were spent but the white narcissus with yellow centers opened.  A young pelican perched on a dock piling, apparently unconcerned about lightning.  A female hooded merganser paddled by. 

Both the oak and the wild cherry were leafing out.  Dogwood blossoms were open but still green.  A feral peach sapling was loaded with pink flowers.  And those flower spikes I discovered on the money plant had flowers today. 

A yellow rumped warbler visited the sagging suet.  (The heat got to it.)  Another watched enviously.  A gusty wind made whitecaps on the creek.  The wind  hustled the clouds along and tore holes for the sun to shine through.  I planted wildflower seeds and got very hot and sticky.  

Turtles crowded the basking logs.  Bees and wasps cruised around looking for the wherewithal to set up housekeeping.  A lone goose with one wing out of place cropped grass by the shoreline.  Another young pelican fished quite successfully.  The predicted storm held off till well after dark. 

Changeable

The sky was gray and everything was wet but the rain appeared to be over.  The water was calm and the air quiet.  Carolina wrens, juncos, and white throated sparrows were breakfast guests.  I startled a pileated woodpecker when I came back from the kitchen. Later a downy woodpecker ignored me as it ate suet. 

Red breasted and hooded mergansers plied the creek waters. I saw butterbutts flitting through the wet branches.  That made me notice that the volunteer peach was blooming.  Wood ducks prospected for nesting sites along the lake. The tide was very high at noon almost a week past full moon.

Afternoon could not have been more different - sunny, windy, and colder.  The lake was full of activity.  Shovelers were pinwheeling to stir up food from the bottom.  Three cormorants basked on a log.  One turtle had ventured out onto a different log.  The wood ducks were still around as was a dark duck I couldn't identify.  Even a goose passed through the jumble of snags.  Down on the creek it was all about gulls and mergansers.  The gulls fought over their catch. 

Toward evening, songbirds flitted through the branches, but they were silhouettes against the sky and I couldn't identify them.  A couple of female red breasted mergansers splashed and dived together in one spot for a long time.  I could not figure out if they were bathing or fishing or what.  A sizable flock of mergansers collected downstream from the neighbor's dock.  Puffy clouds took color from the sunset, 

Windy

Today continued the warm spell, and the sunshine interspersed with cumulus clouds.  At breakfast, I could see a heron on a dock downstream, with many tree limbs between us.  The wren was an early bird.  The mealworm dish was covered in dew. 

After lunch, a cabbage white paused to drink from the rosemary flowers.  A couple of ruddy ducks were barely visible downstream from the dam.  The sparrows were out in force, both song and white throat.  Two buzzards played on the wind, but why did they keep circling over our yard?  The warbler still wanted suet, but the oriole may have departed.  Downy and the female red bellied woodpeckers were after suet too.  Red was a very messy eater which made the sparrows happy.  Eventually titmice got a turn at the suet. 

Leaves popped out on the wild cherry.  And there are pink peach blossoms in the woodsy corner.  Sunset was gold rather than rosy. But there was an ominous darkness to the North.  Soon we began to see lightning.  However, the storm stayed North and swept across Cape Charles and out into the Atlantic.  Meanwhile the temperature dropped back to February expectations.

Another summer day in March

Sunny. Cardinals on the feeder. Cabbage butterflies and bees. The newspaper had a photo of a carpenter bee which resembled some of the ones on the rosemary. Two cabbage butterflies darted around each other while rising to thirty feet in the air. Is this courting or territorial behavior?

Apparently at some time a peach pit ended up behind a pine tree and today blossoming twigs poked around it into the sun.