Spring is in the air

Happy March!

As much as I love my winter birds, I'm really looking forward to Spring migration. I'm anxious to get my garden cleaned up and start planting... which is nuts, considering we've still got two-foot-deep snow drifts in parts of our yard, and the Horned Larks are still singing away in our fields. (I love listening to them when I'm out in the yard with the pup. Such a pretty sound.)

Regardless, though, I saw my first signs of Spring this week: the maple trees around us are being tapped for syrup, and I saw a robin fly across the road on my to work yesterday. Yeah, yeah, I know, some robins are over-wintering here now. But I'm going to go with it being a migrant. Makes me feel better. ;-)

I also watched Mr. Northern Cardinal attack his reflection in my car's side-view mirror this morning. I figure that's a sign that he's ready to start fighting for mating rights.

The downside to Spring is that all of a sudden we've got flocks of Starlings taking over our feeders. I hate those birds so, so, sooooo much. Them and the House Sparrows. Ugh. The Starlings are also brilliant mimics, and have fooled me and Dave more than once. They have a stellar red-tailed hawk cry, and lately they've been singing the first few notes of the male cardinal's call.

Haven't been taking many pictures around the yard, but I've been visiting a really lovely park down in Cambridge and getting some nice shots of the usual winter suspects - Black-capped Chickadees, American Tree Sparrows, Northern Cardinals, White-breasted Nuthatches. I even saw a beautiful male House Finch a few weeks back, and a Song Sparrow. It's early for a Song Sparrow, I think, but since the winter's been so mild, maybe it's not that unusual.

Here are a couple of my faves:

Winter birds

After a frustratingly slow fall bird-wise (we even only had one lowly little white-crowned sparrow pass through, and it was a juvenile that I saw once), things seem to be picking up. Yay!

This week we had our first American Tree Sparrow of the winter at our hopper feeder, the Hairy Woodpecker made a reappearance for the first time in a couple of months, and we had Yard Bird Species #52 - White-breasted Nuthatch!

We also have a Cooper's Hawk back stalking our yard. Last year I came home several times to carnage in the snow, but only a couple of times did I catch the culprits in the act - one was a Sharp-shinned Hawk happily munching away on a sparrow, and the other was a Red-Tail that took out a Mourning Dove right under our back window.

I didn't even know the Cooper's was back until the other morning. I was outside with the pup before leaving for work on Tuesday, and I was standing near the driveway, by my hubby's SUV. All of a sudden a sparrow comes screaming past the front of the barn/storage shed, followed by a Cooper's Hawk in full hunting mode. The sparrow just barely made it under Dave's truck and the Cooper's veered off just in time to avoid smacking into the bumper. I was maybe... 10 feet away from the action, and it was SO cool to be that close to a hawk on the hunt.

I saw the Cooper's again yesterday morning, as it dove after some birds at the side of our house. I just happened to look out the front door in time to see him fly up and off (talons empty and no carnage to be found in its wake).

So yes! Fun times are coming. I'm also getting a new camera soon, so I hope I'll be able to put it to good use this winter. And I'm REALLY hoping the snowy owls make it this far south again - I missed them last year!