Passing me by?

Sunset with redbud in foreground

After a week or so of relatively normal temperatures, yesterday the temperature rose to a near-record point for the date. With that, the leaves at Roundtop, literally overnight, burst open. Oh my gosh, it’s almost summer.

As if to prove that, this morning I heard the first red-eyed vireo of the spring, and just as in other springs, trying to find that bird in the upper reaches of the oak canopy proved impossible. It doesn’t help that the birds are nearly the same shade as that of the leaves when the first rays of the morning sun turns them a bright yellowy-green. So this morning I had to be content with the vireo’s sharp, brilliant song emanating from somewhere high above my head.

Sometimes the internet is both a blessing and a curse. It is with growing envy that I am reading reports of outstanding migration flights into the central part of the U.S. It is with even more envy that I read about some 35,000 broad-winged hawks passing over Braddock Bay near Rochester NY yesterday. Here at Roundtop, I’m still hoping for warblers to arrive and perhaps to see a few raptors pass overhead. Right now the migration is feeling nearly non-existent, one invisible red-eyed vireo not withstanding.

I’m ready for those migration floodgates to open. I’m just starting to worry that they are passing me by this year.