Saturday, February 02, 2008

The Hearlds of Spring

Always, the hearlds of spring, in this area anyway, have been the robins. It isn't unusual to see them singularily or in pairs over the winter, but it's usually around mid-March when they start coming in flocks of a dozen or so.

Such was the case today. I was doing my housecleaning, outside shaking rugs when I noticed two robins in the oak tree. It's not the most common sight, but I've seen these birds when they've opted to stay rather than make the migration to the south. I mentioned them to Husband when I went inside to collect another rug. Almost immediately he called me in to look out the front windows. There were at least a dozen robins on the barbarry bushes, eating the berries. Now this was amazing. Husband tried to sneak outside around the house to get a picture of them, but they were rathe skittish and saw him first.

To have this many birds in the garden at once is a sign that they are migrating. Could it be that they are migrating now, the first week of February? Could this be due to global warming? I'll have to wait and see. March is usually our very worst of the winter months because it is starting to warm up and then will suddenly go into a deep freeze. February averages around 38º with snow. There hasn't been much snow so far (knock on wood), but there has been a good deal of rain. There has also been two ice storms so far this winter. I could live without those.

Today is a beautiful day, around 40º. The wind has a bit of a chill in the air.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's a wonderful day over this way too. I kept expecting to see a rainbow but didn't.

What I've noticed is since we cut down a lot of corn fields there are hundreds of crows hanging at the golf course with no place to go. HUGE birds I mean to tell you. I wake up to them chatting. It's quite interesting to see the world change with the increase of global warming and land destruction. I like the birds but it's sad knowing why they're at the course instead of in other parts of the state where you normally see them in these large numbers.

Congrats on best in show :-)
Austin