As warblers warble and turkeys gobble

 If the weather around here follows a typical “spring” pattern, one day next month we’ll awaken to a day in the 90’s and thereafter it will be more like summer than spring. It’s not clear if that means we’ll also break the extended string of mostly cloudy days. Yes, as a matter of fact, I have been thinking a number of uncomplimentary things about those “science communicators” who first coined the concept of global warming instead of climate breakdown or disruption. We are a week from the beginning of May and the current temperature is 42℉, almost 20 degrees less than a normal daytime high for this date and location.

yellow-rumped warbler (Myrtle) male

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we managed to get a few photos and confirmed that our suspicion yesterday, that it’s a flock or so of Yellow-rumped Warbler Myrtle males that's passing through, correctly identified our visitors.

Meanwhile, as we’re writing this, rain showers are interrupting the tom turkey displaying at the back corner of our field, accompanied by a jake while trying to impress two hens. A third hen, back near the house, is having none of it and headed off on her own into a different part of the woods. All this prompted me to go get my turkey calls that I had intended to practice with last winter and try them out. That resulted in the dogs giving me some very funny looks. If I were actually turkey hunting these days I probably wouldn’t have been wearing rain gear so now I’d be damp and cold and cursing a tom that won’t come within range ‘cuz he’s got a harem already. If turkey hunting weren’t so much fun it would be really frustrating, or is it the other way around?

This Saturday we’ll pick up our first Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share of spring greens. Maybe that will help us feel more in the spirit of the season instead of feeling like we’re trapped in the dregs of a never-ending winter.

Audubon Warblers

By Kevin L. Cole

The Audubon warblers keep the time of their coming,

Arriving on stillness of a storm,

Their breast and backs as dark as low bruised banks of cloud,

Rumps and throats as yellow as blooms of buckwheat.

 

They throng this evening in the newly-leaved

Tender-tipped canopies nervously weaving

Through the catkins like frantic prophets

Bearing some divine prophecy of the coming spring.

 

I wait, hoping for nothing too grave:

News of ruinous lands, of cutting and swarming locusts,

Of withering vines and empty granaries,

Of fasting, weeping, and rending of garments.

 

No, I wait for lighter fare:

Perhaps a promise that the green heron will nest

On the west end of the slough and that the ironweed

And wood lily will once again together bloom.

 

This would be an ample prophecy for another year—

This and a promise to keep the time of their coming.

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