Gleanings from March 2015

When warmer weather arrives, we tend to forget that the month started with snow!

Snow and melting, melting and snow was the mantra for March.  The freezing and thawing cycle was also what made March the month for tapping maple trees and drawing sap.

A late-bursting pair of cattails shone in the sunshine in the sugar bush at St. John’s Arboretum.

A family of trumpeter swans grazed in a stubble field.  One adult swan stood on one leg as the rest of the family moved around her.  I’m thinking she must have been injured.

Another snow on the 22nd brought the dark-eyed juncos to the feeders.

Melting snow dripped from the house, coating the ornamental grass under the roof line with ice.

Two freezing days after a warming trend formed sapsicles in the maple tree.

A mourning dove and her mate waddled on the ground under the bird feeder, warming themselves in the morning sun.  Their melancholy coos sounded calming and comforting.

A blue jay was performing the spring mating ritual of feeding his mate.  He gathered a seed or two, flew up in the tree where she sat on a branch, and fed her.  The cardinals also carry out this chivalrous act in the spring.

This little black squirrel showed up last week.  His stubby tail made me wonder what Squirrel Nutkin adventure he had been up to!

While Stubby was eating at one bird feeder, a gray squirrel was flaunting his long, beautiful tail at the other feeder.

The end of the month was ice-out on the Sauk River down the hill from our house.  Spring is here!

Days of warm weather and wind have probably melted the rest of the ice on the River and made conspicuous holes in the lakes’ ice.  I have migrated back to South Dakota for a while to join my mom in helping my sister recover from hip surgery.  I miss my mate and our evening meals together, though it’s wonderful to be back on the prairie again.  As Spring bursts forth in small, incremental ways, I plan to cherish the time with my family and enjoy the creatures and features of new life.