Rites of Spring

[akirlu]

The slow-popcorn bloom of spring is gaining momentum. Pop. Pop, pop. The saffron-yellow crocuses have been joined by purple ones, and the daffodils begin, singly, to flash their frilly skirts.

Friday morning we spent making the house semi-habitable for house guests, since the pet sitter would be spending the nights of Potlatch at our house so we didn't have to. I was taking an empty box out to recycle and stopped in wonder, half-way out the door. There are dark pink buds and flowers all over that shapeless lump of greenery next to the back porch. "Good God," says I. "It's an azalea." I don't know how I never noticed before.

From the living room, I saw the plum tree on the front lawn has also started to bloom. Frothy, strawberry-milkshake pink blossoms, as it turns out. They're the double kind. Just one or two, here and there, so far. Pop, pop.

And around ten in the morning, the flicker came by. That's a hell of a noise, until you suss out what the heck that is. If you're in the living room it sounds like an air compressor kicking to life, or a large dog growling, somewhere up the chimney flue. In fact, it's the handsome local flicker, pecking away at the metal rain guard over our chimney top. The flue makes a nice echo chamber.

The jackhammer tapping is, apparently, male flicker-ese for, "Hey, lookee! My what a very big, powerful one I've got." Big, powerful beak, that is. Female flickers go for that sort of thing. Liz assures me that every year the local papers get letters from newcomers wondering what they can do to get the "woodpeckers" to stop doing that. Not much. Throw something. And thank your lucky stars you aren't on the early parts of his route. The male flickers are firm believers in the virtue of being the early bird. But my life would not be enriched by avian jackhammers at 6:00 in the morning...

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Our last spring on Interlake there was a northern flicker that flew around every morning, calling out his territory. Bright AND early.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

That must be especially distressing for those of you sleeping just under the roof...

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, traveling around the country at this time of year can be interestingly like having a time machine. In Southern California, early spring starts some time in late January, so by early March, it's already mid-late spring. By some time in April or May, spring is over and early summer has taken over, if not Omigod Dessicant Heat Death. Here in the Northwest, spring has been gearing up for the last two or three weeks, and will roll on majestically until May some time. Taking the train up the coast from one to the other in March is like traveling back in time through the stages of spring. Whereas I've been to Minnesota in April, for a Minicon, and been catapulted backward to late winter, when the snowdrops were just poking up, and friends were checking to see if their strawberries survived the hard part of the winter, only to fly back to LA to catch the first of that year's local strawberry crop just a few days later. It's totally wacky.

But yes, spring, and green, will come again.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

"The slow-popcorn bloom of spring is gaining momentum. Pop. Pop, pop. The saffron-yellow crocuses have been joined by purple ones, and the daffodils begin, singly, to flash their frilly skirts."

Oh, yes. That's what it's like. Not here yet, of course. Here we got 5 more inches of snow Saturday. But your post reminds me that I can look forward to the woods starting to fuzz up and flatten in another 4-6 weeks. (In winter, I can see deep into my woods. Then spring comes, the depth gets fuzzy as leaves bud, and by June I can only see through the first 4-5 layers of trees. The leaves become the wrapping, concealing the woods within.

Not yet, but your post reminds me that soon, soon, Monkey and Mom will emerge from the snow bank and instead peer out from beneath the blooming bleeding heart. The cowslips will bloom in the pond. Winter will pass and it will be spring once more. Really, it will. I believe! I believe!

But first, there will be more shoveling....

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, you *could* have bought a place near Seattle...

Right now, the trees here are in that stage where all the crowns seem darkly pinkish from all the red buds swelling up, getting ready. Driving along where the trees are especially thick, it can look like a pink mist along the riverbanks and along the valleys.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Just got to experience the specialness of being woken by a flicker trying to peck holes in the foam insulation just under the roof of the guest room where we were recently staying in Santa Fe. Thought it was someone repeatedly knocking at the door until I realized it was coming from behind the bed.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, somehow when it's that loud indoors, the sound is hard to parse for what it is.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

No buds yet, but I saw a robin today!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

We, of course, have had robins for a while. I'm not convinced they ever go away. On the other hand, I keep seeing a red-breasted bird that looks almost robin-ish, but has a head that's genuinely black, not merely dark brown, and I can't figure out what the heck that is. Must ask a real birder.

[shikzoid.livejournal.com]

Seems to me I've seen a Rufous-Sided Towhee or three in South Bellevue. Is there any white on the wings?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Good call. Yes, they do (having just spotted another one) have a bit of white on the wings and also the tail, possibly also the breast. Certainly the rufous-sided towhee looks plausibly like what I have been seeing. Thanks!