Things I'm Excited About (Spring!)

Spring is coming (!) and lots of exciting things are happening:

1. A male Eastern Bluebird has been checking out our two nest boxes over the past couple of days. I would absolutely love to have a bluebird pair take up residence in one of these boxes, which are a new addition to the property as of last year. (Of course, I also love having Tree Swallows as tenants, and other birds are welcome, too, but these are "bluebird" boxes, after all!)

2. Yesterday was apparently a fantastic day for migration, because big flocks of geese were passing overhead all day. In 10 minutes in the middle of the day, I counted 500 Canada Geese flying over our house, plus a couple of Snow Geese. And I saw reports yesterday of people counting Canada Geese in the tens of thousands as they passed over the area. We even heard flocks of geese honking overhead at around 9:00-10:00 PM, times which have normally been so silent around here all winter.

3. Garden season has started! I planted some asparagus seeds indoors a couple of weeks ago (I know people usually plant asparagus crowns, but seeds turn out to be much cheaper, and you have to wait a year or more to harvest the asparagus either way), and now there are the tiniest asparaguses (asparagi?) growing in our basement. I didn't know asparagus could be so small! And tomorrow I'll plant the next wave of vegetable and flower seeds and tuck them into their cozy growing area, with lights and heat mats. Yay, plants!

4. I visited Sapsucker Woods today (at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) and saw even more early spring sights. Beautiful Skunk Cabbage blossoms are poking up above the snow, and while I didn't clearly see whether any of these super-early spring flowers are actually open yet, I was still very happy to see these lovely speckled plants:
 

Red-winged Blackbirds have just returned to the area (like, yesterday), and male blackbirds were displaying from perches all around Sapsucker Woods's many marshy areas. These are the first Red-winged Blackbirds I've seen this year! Those bright wings are intense, especially in otherwise bare trees:
 

This male was a little more reserved, keeping his red shoulders partly covered while he puffed up and called:
 

Here's one more picture of this bird, looking handsome in between displays:
 

And we're off! Hooray, spring!

Spring Beginnings, with a Dash of Snow

We got a sprinkling of snow last night, and temperatures were hovering around freezing when I went with some friends to check out the Etna Nature Preserve this morning:
 

It may not look it, but spring is happening, I swear! Up until today, we've had a streak of rainy and warm-ish weather, and these woods were showing signs of spring. Skunk Cabbage was blooming (although it's probably been blooming for a while) and starting to unfurl green leaves:
 

Tiny Trout Lily leaves were coming up, looking like little spears in the snow:
 

We even found pink flowers on a small leafless shrub that turned out to be a non-native garden escapee, Daphne mezereum:

A couple of Eastern Phoebes were calling and flycatching and working on constructing a nest under the eaves of a nearby house. Hello wonderful birds, and welcome back!
 

So yes, it felt like winter today, but we're well into the beginning of spring. Spring Peepers have been singing loudly every night (except last night) around our house, and I saw this Red Eft (juvenile Red-spotted Newt) wandering across marshy water at the Roy H. Park Preserve earlier this week:

Hooray for amphibians and flowers and returning birds! Hooray for spring!

Amphibian Afternoon, Plus a Mole Cricket

The ponds at Naugatuck State Forest were positively raucous with amphibian activity when I visited there yesterday afternoon. Hooray for spring! Spring Peepers were calling their piercing calls from all around the water's edge, but even though I looked and looked for these tiny frogs, I couldn't see a single one. They must have been very well hidden under the grasses and brush! Well, whether I could see them or not, they were definitely there:



(The bird flying around in the above video is a Song Sparrow who every few minutes added his voice to the Spring Peeper cacophony.)

While I searched for peepers, a Pickerel Frog leaped out of hiding. I wish I would see these fancy frogs more often:

In the pond's shallows, the water was practically roiling with Red-spotted Newts:

And just a few feet away, in a small pool, Wood Frogs were making their quacking-croaking sounds. When I got near, these frogs went quiet and did their best floating-leaf impressions, just drifting across the water's surface:

So many amphibians, and I love them all! There were already many clusters of Wood Frog eggs in the pool, along with cloudy masses of (probably) Spotted Salamander eggs. I keep hoping to come across a Spotted Salamander on my walks, but so far these awesome underground creatures have stayed hidden.

Although yesterday's walk was (as usual) lacking in terrestrial salamanders, I did happen upon another creature that's usually hidden away underground: a mole cricket!

This bizarre insect (I think the species is a Northern Mole Cricket, Neocurtilla hexadactyla) was wandering across the muddy ground next to a pond, and it very helpfully froze as soon as it knew I'd seen it. I've only ever seen a mole cricket once before, and that was a dead and mangled individual, so I was super excited to get to check out this guy (or girl) close up. What an amazingly weird animal!

I love those claw/spade-like front legs, so perfect for digging, and I'm intrigued by those alien tube-like structures down its back. From what I've read, I'm guessing these are modified hind wings; I've just never seen anything like them before. The mole cricket was big, too, maybe around two inches long.

The mole cricket eventually decided it'd had enough with the photo session, and it pushed its way under a wet leaf:

Ah, snug as a... mole cricket in a wet leaf. (Can you see the antennae sticking out in the upper middle of this last picture?)

Other sights from yesterday's walk included 20 Common Mergansers on the open water, drifting in large groups from one end of the pond to another:

Common Mergansers show up at these ponds around this time every year before they move on to their breeding areas. I'm always happy to admire the elegant females:

And tuxedoed males:

The Skunk Cabbage blooms are showing off their gorgeous colors and patterns, as usual:

And look, green leaves unfurling! I guess spring really is here!

Happy First Day of Spring!

Today was sunny and beautiful, and I've been itching to get out into the woods, so I headed off this afternoon to Southford Falls State Park. After all, what better way to celebrate the first official day of spring than with a nice walk through the woods?

Did I say "spring"? This doesn't look particularly spring-like!
 

Even with a thin layer of snow still on the ground, though, the seasons are definitely changing. You've got your Skunk Cabbages in bloom (our first flowers, although they've actually been blooming for weeks now):
 

And your American Robins foraging in the muddy ground:
 

I also saw an Osprey wheeling high over the park's pond this afternoon -- these birds are just now returning from their winter stays to the south.

For a short stretch of my walk, I was accompanied by two Brown Creepers. (That is, they kept flying ahead of me along the path, although I'm sure they didn't actually intend to stay in my presence.) I think these little birds are really cool, and I'm always glad to see them doing their creeping thing up tree trunks:
 

I also really love the pattern of colors on this bird's back:
 

It looks like temperatures should start inching upward in the coming weeks -- this gradual shift into spring is so completely different (and much more normal, I imagine) than our jump to 70 degree days around this time last year. I'm happy to wait, because I know spring will be in full swing soon enough!

Ultra-Puffy Chickadee

It got fairly warm today (50 degrees), but a brisk wind kept things quite chilly while Paul and I went for a quick walk around the neighborhood. Apparently we weren't the only ones feeling the wind, because we came across the puffiest chickadee I have ever seen -- it was huddled into a perfectly round and fluffy ball in a bush next to the path:

What a lovely flowing black-and-white hairdo you have, little bird! And yes, you're doing a marvelous impression of a tennis ball:

(I know it's been chickadee central around here recently, but what can you do? These guys are just the perfect combination of visible, approachable, and adorable.)

Even though Skunk Cabbages started poking their buds above the ground already in late fall, seeing them now among melting patches of snow makes me think of spring:

But we've still got some winter left, yet! Keep those feathers fluffed up, little birds!

A Pileated Pair, and Growing Things

It’s gotten cold again, but it was sunny and clear yesterday (if a bit chilly), so I decided to visit Naugatuck State Forest to see what’s changed since I was last there a week ago. While there, I saw my first really colorful warbler of the year (a Pine Warbler), tons of tiny plants springing up (but no flowers yet), and a few other cool things as well.

The best part was when a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers (one male and one female, although it’s a little hard to tell who’s who in the picture below) flew right past me and set to work hammering on a nearby tree:

It seems that I’m doomed to always take far-away blurry pictures of these glorious birds, but this one is (I think) at least a tiny bit clearer than photos I’ve posted before. And just look at those crests! I wonder if these two will be setting up a nest cavity somewhere in the area soon....

Here are some more assorted sights from my walk, in no particular order:

A tiny grasshopper (or related creature), probably about half an inch long, was hopping around on a sunny bank:

In profile, the grasshopper actually strikes me as a little on the creepy side (it's something about that mouth...):

A mass of tiny caterpillars (tent caterpillars, I’m guessing, from those webs) was clustered on a twig -- the group as a whole couldn’t have taken up more space than a penny:

And a little Green Frog was resting in a pool:

Plants are popping up everywhere now, including invasive Japanese Knotweed, which has taken over an area next to the entrance:

But there were also more pleasant plants emerging, like these wonderfully fuzzy fiddleheads of a fern species I don’t know:

Big leafed-out Skunk Cabbages:

And patches of mottled Trout Lily leaves scattered over the forest floor:

It was a good walk, overall. :)

Winter Green

I keep expecting to see signs of spring in the woods, even though I know it's not quite time for that yet. Just to remind me that winter's still here, the paths at Naugatuck State Forest where I went for a walk this afternoon showed a thin layer of packed snow, left over from the few inches we got last Thursday:

Maybe because my mind is already in spring mode, though, I honed in on the color green during my walk today. There wasn't much in the way of new things growing, but it was nice to notice some of our plants that keep their leaves all winter. As it turns out, there's quite a bit of living green out there among the brown!

The shiny purple-green leaves of Round-leaved Pyrola, for example, dotted the side of this bank:

And this Spotted Wintergreen contributed a lovely blue-green hue to the mix -- one of these plants is still holding on to the dried remains of last year's flower:

Partridgeberry stretched chains of its tiny dark-green leaves across the ground:

My favorite discovery of the day was this lone Downy Rattlesnake Plantain, one of our native orchids, growing in a different part of the forest from where I found it blooming last summer. Its intricately patterned leaves practically glowed from its setting on the brown forest floor:

Isn't this just the prettiest little plant? I'll keep an eye on it to see whether it blooms this year.

The Hemlock trees looked especially green today, making a roof above the path:

And I love the extensive patches of sea-green lichen on this tree -- I've often noticed it, but neglected to photograph it until now:

And of course, what list of green things in the winter woods would be complete without some moss? There are so many different types of moss out there, and maybe one day I'll try to learn to identify them -- for now, I'll just marvel at some of the interesting textures and vibrant colors that presented themselves today:

The only real sign of spring I've seen so far remains the Skunk Cabbage, and those plants are getting stronger by the day, with little mottled maroon-and-yellow balloons popping up all over the swampy areas of the forest:

And what's this? A hint of new-green Skunk Cabbage leaf unrolling as well?

Maybe spring really is on its way after all. :D