Budburst time

We’re back to seasonal temperatures, more or less. Rain today, snow tomorrow, plus the wettest winter on record have eased the drought in eastern Minnesota. The Sunrise river marshes are all flooded. If more wetlands had been left alone and not filled or drained, would the state have five rivers with flood forecasts?

maple tree: April budburst

Photo by J. Harrington

Sometime during the past few days the maple tree leaf buds have exploded. Budburst, that we’re used to seeing occur over several days, happened overnight thanks to several consecutive days of very unseasonably hot temperatures in the mid to low 80s. We are now back to soup and stew weather and I hope I don’t have to dig my heavy parka back out of the closet until next January.

All the water has brought migrating waterfowl back, some to nest here, others just passing through on their way North. A pair of Canada geese flew over the back yard last evening, not much more than roofline high. Earlier, what looked like a mating flight, with a handful of drakes chasing one hen, hustled across the sky a little above the tree top high. We noticed a pair of teal resting on the neighborhood pond a couple of days ago.

Meanwhile, our barred owl neighbor seems to have disappeared. Busy helping feed owlets, perhaps. Despite erratic weather, spring appears to be proceeding on something like its usual pace, although we’ve not seen any of the usual song bird spring migrants at the feeder yet.

There Will Come Soft Rains

Sara Teasdale - 1884-1933

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

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