When spring finally took hold (toward the end of April, and later than last year's spring arrival in this area), the change was solid; we haven't had a snowfall or even a frost (as far as I know) since late April (this area's average last frost is May 15).
I mentioned in my last post that storm-born damage to our house at the beginning of March landed us in a hotel. Well, we were eventually able to move back into our house, but not until April 27. (That's almost two months, you'll notice! The insurance company took their time with our claim.) We visited and worked at the house as much as we could during that time, but it wasn't the same, and I'm sure I missed a lot of things (the first rainy-warm amphibian night of the year, for instance). In between attention to work and house repairs, I also made a big push to get our first vegetable garden going at the house (my first real garden in four years). And then for a big 10-day chunk in May, we took an international trip (where I saw many amazing things, and I hope to post about that adventure here later). Whew! And through all of that, the seasons have changed, new animals and plants have shown up in the yard, and I've done my best to keep up with all of this in what is our first spring on this property.
So here's a summary of the natural goings-on (at least what I saw of them) at our house in the past couple of months!
Mammals
Red Squirrels, Eastern Chipmunks, and White-tailed Deer have continued to be the most commonly seen mammals on our property. An Eastern Cottontail rabbit seems to be living on the edge of our meadow, and Gray Squirrels have shown up a few times as well.
On April 6, a beautiful Red Fox wandered through our meadow around dusk and did a bit of hunting (there are plenty of voles and mice here, too). This was the first time we'd seen a fox on the property, although I'd suspected they were around. The fox paused for a moment on top of some rocks we'd left in the meadow, then it moved along:
Toward the end of April, we saw a Groundhog carrying mouthfuls of leaves and grass into a burrow at the edge of our yard. If there are Groundhog babies down there, we haven't seen them yet. On May 16, I watched an adult Groundhog foraging near the bird feeders; here's a picture of the Groundhog on alert, with a dandelion bud hanging from its mouth, listening to Paul doing yard work and getting ready to dive into a nearby burrow in the raspberry patch:
Birds
April and May brought so much change in the bird population around here, and it was especially exciting to welcome back some individual birds who were summer residents last year. A Chipping Sparrow with a uniquely white forehead was a frequent fixture in our yard last summer, and when the Chipping Sparrows started showing up again in April, there he was! Here's a picture of this striking fellow on May 11:
And here he is on April 28, posing in spruce tree with another (more typically outfitted) Chipping Sparrow:
I was already fairly certain that our white-browed Chipping Sparrow was a male, because I've seen him singing boisterously from the tops of trees. As it turns out, Chipping Sparrows are not secretive about copulating, and as of this spring I can confirm that yes, he's a male. I love having an easily recognizable individual bird as our neighbor (as I'm writing this, I can see him right now outside my window; that flash of white really is eye-catching).
I took this picture of another Chipping Sparrow under the feeders on May 2nd -- the white-browed sparrow's mate, perhaps?
And just a few days ago, I found out where Mr. white-browed Chipping Sparrow and his mate have their nest. I was working around the garbage cans at the side of our house, and I noticed that a normal-looking Chipping Sparrow (the female, I know now) was chirping and preening on a low branch in a nearby tree. I thought at first that she was being unusually sociable (how nice of this bird to hang out here with me), but after a few minutes it occurred to me that there was probably another reason why this bird wasn't flying away. So I peered into the small shrub near me, and yep, there's a nest in there! Here's the shrub -- it's so small and isolated, I really wouldn't have thought of this as a likely nesting place:
And here's a picture of the nest and the four beautiful brown-speckled-blue eggs, as of June 2 (this is as clear a picture as I could get without touching the branches):
I pass by this shrub frequently, and now I almost always see the female Chipping Sparrow on the nest; she's a stalwart mother.
We were also happy to welcome back our Eastern Phoebe neighbor, presumably the same one who nested above our front door last year, because she's built another nest in the same spot. Even before she started building, though, she hung around the prospective spot for a week or so. On April 11, after it got dark outside, we opened the front door to leave the house (to go back to the hotel) and we must've startled the phoebe from her roost because she flew right inside the house! She flew gracefully around our dining room a few times (not hitting anything or even pooping anywhere), and then she flew right back out the front door. (We had to turn off the room lights and turn on the porch light to show her where to go, but she went out on her own.) What an amazing encounter. And more generally, I love seeing a phoebe in our front yard nearly every time I look:
She completed the nest by early May -- it's a lovely construction of plant fiber, mud, and moss, with some pink (synthetic?) stuff worked in as well:
When I peeked into the nest on May 10, I found five perfect eggs inside:
And a visit to the nest on June 1 revealed three quill-covered babies (I guess not all of the eggs hatched):
On April 5, we set up two bluebird nest boxes in our meadow, complete with predator baffles on the poles. It was looking at first like we wouldn't get any tenants in these boxes this year, but after a great deal of waffling a pair of Tree Swallows eventually settled in. Here's the female Tree Swallow sitting on top of the chosen box:
I don't think I realized before this year how subtly beautiful female Tree Swallows are. I love the muted blue feathers on her back and wings:
Here's the brighter male Tree Swallow keeping watch from atop the old Purple Martin house that's still standing in our yard; the Tree Swallow pair seemed to be considering nesting in this old box when they first returned this year -- which is why I haven't taken this box down yet -- but a group of European Starlings pulled out the Tree Swallows' nesting material and moved them along (and then the starlings didn't even try to nest in the box themselves):
I love having Tree Swallows around, and I think the male is one of our prettiest birds:
I also love the sounds that Tree Swallows make, which are something like strange burbling whistles. Here's a video of our male Tree Swallow grooming himself and singing outside our bedroom window on the morning of May 6:
The Tree Swallows were about halfway through building their nest on May 8, and when I checked the box on May 17 there were two tiny white eggs nestled among the feather-lined nest. On June 1, I saw the finished clutch, five eggs in total:
And just two days later, on June 3, the nest was filled with tiny day-old (or less?) babies:
I don't know yet whether that fifth egg has hatched. The other couple of times I've checked the nest box, the female has stayed steadfast on the nest, which makes it hard to see what's going on in there, but it's also awesome to see this beautiful lady eye to eye, with just a sheet of plastic between us:
May brought several other fancy new arrivals to our yard as well. Chestnut-sided Warblers have been hanging around quite a bit, and on May 10, I came across a group of at least three of these handsome birds foraging at eye level along the edge of our woods:
This one found a treat:
Chestnut-sided Warblers are my favorite of the warblers, not least because their outfits are so beautiful and interesting from every angle:
How awesome to have these birds here! (And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that some of them are sticking around to breed.)
Other warblers passed through, too, including a few Tennessee Warblers who spent a good deal of time working over our apple trees and singing almost constantly:
I've been happy to welcome back the Gray Catbirds; I miss their strange cat-like calls and rambling songs when they're not here, and they're such elegant birds:
One of the most surprising arrivals in May was a bunch of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, surprising because we only saw these birds briefly last summer, and only toward the end of the season. But our feeders were apparently a big hit with these birds this year, and through almost all of May these gregarious birds were a strong presence in the yard. The males are really stunning:
The female Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are very pretty as well:
I never quite got used to looking out at the feeder and seeing black-and-white birds with what looked like a serious wound on their chest (really, what's with that blood-red color?). Overall, the feeders were very popular throughout April and May. Here's one picture of feeder activity on May 10, with a Rose-breasted Grosbeak among American Goldfinches, a Purple Finch in the lower left, and a Pine Siskin on the right:
Indigo Buntings have been another amazing May arrival, and they've been hanging around enough that I've now learned their song. I was surprised to see this male Indigo Bunting hopping around under the feeder one May afternoon, like a bizarrely colored finch or sparrow (I even saw him visit the feeder later, which I've never seen before):
May has also brought back the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, including this delightful male:
This tiny bird is very flashy, when seen from just the right angle:
Spring is so amazing, and I have much more to share! But this post is getting too long, so consider this the first part of a larger post. Part 2 will be along soon!
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