3/16/2021 2 Comments Love is in the airI began writing this post in my head back about three weeks ago when I first started noticing more birdsong in the mornings, even before sunrise. And then, still in late February, I watched both a pair of Northern Cardinals and a pair of Eurasian Collared-Doves (the latter looking like the dove returning to Noah's ark) carrying sticks in their beaks into the blue spruce just outside my office window, a sure sign of nest-building. And then one of the doves got on top of the other...you get the picture. It's spring. Oh, and speaking of Noah, we got about 5" of rain over the weekend which, while flooding a number of local basements and dropping several FEET of snow farther west of us, has left Adams County full of amazing habitat for the migrating ducks and the soon-to-follow shorebirds (my favorite type of bird). In the past week I've added nine waterfowl species to my year list, and last evening I spotted my first shorebird that wasn't a Killdeer (the most widespread and familiar of this subset of birds which includes sandpipers, plovers, curlews, godwits, dowitchers, and phalaropes, among others). It thrilled my heart, an American Golden-Plover. These remarkable creatures spend the winter deep in South America and summer on the high Arctic tundra, traveling some 25,000 miles in a year. How many hours of daylight do they have in January to explore Patagonia, and how many more will greet them in northern Nunavut in June?! A bird no bigger than a robin chasing sunlight up and down the globe. And think of all the things it sees in between....including a flooded cornfield in south-central Nebraska in the lower pasture where my friends graze their cattle, where it stops for the night to rest and refuel and lift up its mournful cry for my ear to hear. It feels sacred, standing on a gravel road at twilight, watching this gold-flecked, long-distance flyer, like I've encountered something truly wild in a tamed world. I'm inspired to travel, too.
Oh, and since I titled my post "Love is in the air," I'll close with this: Did you know that if you look at just the right angle at the back of the head of the Northern Flicker (a large, fairly common woodpecker that you might see on the ground where they love to probe the soil looking for ants and other insects), you'll see the shape of a heart? I took this photo out my kitchen window on Valentine's Day. No joke!
2 Comments
Terry
3/17/2021 06:48:46 pm
I LOVE that picture of the American Golden Plover!! I want it for my wall 😁. They are so stately!!
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paul
3/19/2021 08:18:06 pm
Thanks! They really are lovely. And I think that can be arranged ;)
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