Doesn’t this photo look like early summer? As it’s only (very) early May, the forest should still be looking like spring, not summer, but that warm spell in March really advanced the seasons this year.
Right now, everything is lush and bright green and of course, very pretty. Overnight, a downpour drenched the mountain, and thunderstorms danced around the trees. This morning the creeks are swollen and muddy—not very pretty.
On Friday evening I heard the first ovenbirds of the spring, followed by the first wood thrush the next morning. That’s the typical pattern here. The wood thrush are always either half a day behind the ovenbirds or perhaps they arrive together but the wood thrush don’t sing until half a day later. The two arrive that way every year. The ovenbirds are always first but only just barely.
A few warblers, mostly yellow-rumped warblers, flittered past the cabin this weekend too. With the trees as well-leafed as they are, spotting and identifying warblers is a particular and unhappy challenge this spring. I can’t always hear warblers anyway—many of their songs are too high-pitched by my ears—but even for the warblers I can hear and identify by sound, I’m not getting much help. The rest of the dawn chorus drowns out many of their songs. The dawn chorus is awake and singing in full voice around the cabin, and the sounds of wood thrush and ovenbirds and cardinals are a lot louder than the soft little twitters made by many of the warblers.
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4 comments:
Looking at your post photo, I'd say your spring greening is more advanced than mine here along the river; but looking out my workroom window, across the yard, downstream, at the island on the other side…I'd say it's a lush and green and leafed out here as there.
Huh! Who woulda thunk!
Lots of warblers coming through. But I've spent much of today trying to get a good Baltimore oriole photo—so far, without much success. There are several of them working the sycamores, and whistling every breath.
Felt like summer on Sunday. I was hoping a good cracking thunderstorm would blow through in the afternoon.
Sadly none came.
Griz: Not many warblers here, though I did have the whistling oriole high atop what I am sure is the tallest oak in the woods--didn't even try for a photo that far up.
Cathy: Had a bit of a thunderstorm here on Sunday and lots of rain Sunday night. No wonder everything is so green!
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