A Spring-like Sunday Morning – Almost Summer
Late on another very warm, sunny morning, a White-breasted Nuthatch was singing a nasal anh-anh-anh-anh-anh from the woods near our house as I left the yard for a walk, and a Louisiana Waterthrush whistled its bright anthem from down around the creek.
A short way down the road, a pair of Red-tailed Hawks soared, low at first, circling, coming close to each other and drifting away, climbing slowly, lazily in a hazy blue sky that looked more like summer than a day in mid March. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet raised its rapid, complex song from the privet thicket where it usually seems to be. A quiet, gentle-looking Dark-eyed Junco hid among the tangle of branches in the same shady spot. Many Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Carolina Wrens, Chipping Sparrows, Pine Warblers and a few Eastern Phoebes sang, and Brown Thrashers sang from treetops all through the neighborhood.
On the edge of a sprawling tangle of privet, pines, sweet gums, poison ivy and other vines and weeds, there’s a tall, slender, gnarled old apple tree that’s been in bloom for the past week or more, not lush, but with clumps of white blossoms clustered around its twisted limbs. This morning many of its small, delicate white petals had showered over the grass and on the road where I walked. I love that old tree, quite different from any others here, the only apple tree around that I know of – though there may be others in overgrown areas. Though I know nothing of its history, except for the past twelve years, it looks tough and gaunt and twisted, with limbs that stoop over at the top, and yet it blooms with such tender beauty.
Several flocks of Cedar Waxwings are still around, hurtling over in tight formation, their thin high calls peppering the air. A large holly bush in one yard, taller than the house, looked as if it had burst into bloom with fluttering birds, as a colorful mob of Waxwings flew in and out and rustled in the dark green foliage.
A scattering of American Robins are still here, too, but today I didn’t see a blackbird flock or any blackbirds at all, except for two pairs of Brown-headed Cowbirds feeding in the grass. Bluebirds sang and hunted from low branches, mostly in pairs now. One pair has started a nest in a newspaper paper box by the road.
Bluets, henbit and dandelions continue to bloom by the roadside, joined now by some common kind of low-growing deep-yellow four-petaled flowers, and another kind of deep-yellow five-petaled flowers, and by a flush of small pale purple-pink blooms spreading over and among clumps of lush green clover and rough grassy plants. Quite a few butterflies were out – tiger swallowtails, a black swallowtail, sulphurs, and several orange butterflies I only saw from a distance, as well as wasps, bees and many other flying insects – I even saw two dragonflies today.