Cold rain

It was predicted, but there was no sign at sunset yesterday that today would be so different. The rain fell and the temperature fell all day long.  But as I was mostly busy indoors, there is little to tell.  When we finally got home, a poor little yellow rumped warbler was trying to feed underneath the suet.  Then darkness fell, but no snow fell despite alarmist meteorologists.

And warm again

The weather has been yo-yoing as the wind shifts around the compass.  The tide got quite low at mid day and the temperature quite high. A thin smear of cloud kept the sun from burning and high winds also prevented me from feeling hot even though I was staffing a voter registration table in the middle of a field.  Gulls and crows circled hoping for wasted food.  The laughing gulls had their black head feathers on for summer. At home, turtles and cormorants basked on the lake logs.  Azaleas were just beginning to bloom.

Cold wind

The cat came by, its belly hanging low.  Pregnant?  After it disappeared the white throats reappeared.  A male downy worked on the suet.  A blue jay got away without a photo.  So did two ospreys that zoomed upstream.

A red breasted merganser paddled downstream.  A yellow rumped warbler was growing a black mask for breeding season.  Another still had a gray face.  I chased, with the camera, a gnatcatcher through the trees. 

A different kind of hawk was run off by crows.  It had a pale underside with no markings that I could see.  And it had a stick in its beak.  I did some weeding and seeding and then came back in to get warm.  The wind grounded all the insects except flies. 

April showers

A male downy came for a breakfast of suet.   One band of rain passed through after lunch.  The rain was light until suddenly it became a "frog strangler."  And then it was over.  The sky stayed threatening, but I did not get wet.

One redbud started blooming.  Violets, azaleas, sassafras, jessamine, narcissus and money plant flowers all awaited pollination.  Turtles and cormorants were warm enough not to mind the rain.  A yellow rumped warbler looked a little bedraggled as it ate suet.

A couple of geese came up the slope nibbling grass and accompanied by a Muscovy duck.  I stood up and they saw me and scuttled back down to the water.  I think I saw them last year with that duck,  I wonder if the duck hatched in a goose nest?  Some Muscovy ducks "dump" eggs in other nests and I did find accounts of geese raising ducks.

Warmer

Under a gray sky, I saw a crow chase an osprey downstream.  Earlier, two ospreys tussled over a perch in one of our pines.  Red bellied and downy woodpeckers came for suet.  A starling was disappointed to find an empty mealworm dish.  A yellow rumped warbler was into everything and white throated sparrows forsook foraging to eat from the seed feeder. A blue jay only watched from the trees.  The temperature peaked around 70 and the sky cleared in the afternoon but I only got glimpses between meetings.

Changeable

The temperature dropped and rain began around 10am.  By early afternoon there was sunshine and a chill North wind.  Then it got gray again.  Juncos, white throats, and yellow rumps were not ready to migrate, though I detected the beginnings of breeding plumage on the warblers.  Titmice, chickadees, and cormorants will not be leaving.  I counted at least 16 cormorants bunched up on the logs by the lake, a veritable gulp of cormorants.

April fools

Morning was nice for Easter services.  The weather played some tricks as the wind shifted from the Southwest to the Northwest bringing chilling clouds in the late afternoon. Insects of all sorts awakened and emerged. I saw (and was too awestruck to photograph) a mourning cloak butterfly with its gold trim blazing in the sunlight.  A cabbage white, wasps, tiny moths and midges flew around me. 

A male downy woodpecker went to work on the suet.  The yellow rumped warbler made do with the mealworm dish.  I saw what might have been a least flycatcher.  A blue jay was busy with something at the base of the cedar by the dock.  Another was under the neighbors' feeder.  Then I definitely saw a bluegray gnatcatcher, maybe more as it never stayed put.  White throats hopped through the understory trees and bushes.  A house finch defied a cardinal and won, but eventually they compromised. 

The sunnyside narcissus opened.  The sassafras started to bloom only to have a squirrel eat the flowers.  The cherry had scattered flowers.  Some ajuga popped up where I thought it was long gone. Periwinkle snails were abundantly visible as the tide was blown very low.  It exposed the trap that worried me last year, but a couple of girls retrieved it.