Spring Equinox 2007

The spring equinox was welcome this year unlike any year in recent memory. There is a malingering air to winter, like the cold that doesn’t let go. Instead of spring weather we have seen unusual fall fogs, giving the impression that winter is right around the corner again.

There was no doubt that the winged ones were joy filled on yesterday’s spring equinox morn. The sun had broke through months of grey to lend an illusion of warmth while the fluffed up, air filled plumage on the birds confirmed that it is still just above freezing temperatures out there.

My writing table is about forty feet from a large well established bird feeding station. A moment ago a pigeon hawk flew between the window and the feeder, I didn’t see if he scored. He’s a new hawk predator in the neighborhood that appeared about a month ago. A few days past I saw him snatch a junco out of the air a few feet off the ground. He landed and sat with the instantly dead junco clutched in his talons for a minute before taking off and skimming along the ground searching a private spot for lunch. Now, in the ten minutes that has passed since the hawk flew through nobody has returned to the feeder.

Every spring day beloved ones reappear; the fat honey bee and the sunning snake both moving in slow motion from the still cold temperatures or the red winged black birds on the day of the solar eclipse.

The male red winged black bird sings his claim over the feeder and his breeding territory. He clears the feeder of the juncos, fox sparrows and towhees with a few agressive swoops. A moment later his mate, a subtler plumage in shades of brown drops down to feed before he joins her. The red winged black birds are tidier feeders than the towhees who usually dominate the top of the feeder. After the blackbirds have settled in to feed, everyone else returns to scavenge at the base of the feeder as usual.

The robins are the first greeters of the day usually singing and chirping with such vigor as to wake the dead. If the robins’ aren’t sufficient to the task of waking you, it really is best to be out of bed before the red pileated flicker begins drumming his territorial business of the day on the loudest most percussive object he can find, in our case the light pole above the garage.
Just before supper last night, two healthy full grown does stood on the lawn a few feet this side of the bird feeder, having just finished gorging on the rest of the tulips in the surrounding gardens.

I will process the clams and oysters we picked yesterday by way of marking the equinox. On the menu, seafood chowder made with chives our first edible garden herbal, and voila, spring tonic. Todays picture is of the beach where we picked the clams and oysters.