Drops of Beauty #176

March 29, 2024

“We may never find our reason to shine, but here and now, this is our time. And I may never find the meaning of life, but for this moment I am fine.” - Lyrics from “Streetcorner Symphony” sung by Rob Thomas

Hello friends! The whirlwind that has been March continues. My day job is super busy, I’m walking longer distances than I was in winter, photos are a little sparse but that’s ok because I don’t have time to process the photos I do take! Such is the frenetic feeling of spring. I do have plenty of little beauties to share with you though! Here are some selections for today:

Our sunrises have alternated between clear skies and fully cloud-covered. At least on March 21 the clouds started to break apart as I drove home.

We go from the ducks of winter to the ducks of spring! Blue-winged teal are one of the most common ducks we see passing through right now.

I have to catch them in the air to get a nice view of why they are called blue-winged!

I’m not sure if the green-winged teal are less plentiful than the blue-winged, but they are definitely more skittish! They never seem to stick around for photos.

I thought these ring-necked ducks might land but they saw me at the last minute and aborted their landing. So close!

I thought maybe all the goldeneyes had left, but this female made a fly by this week.

Even more plentiful than the teal are one of my favorites, the American coots. They are technically not a duck, because they don’t have webbed feet. (If you missed my winter post, you can see their giant, green, dinosaur feet here.)

They get all flustered, but then they settle down and they do what I call the cootie shake, which is like a little hop with a shake out of the water.

Plenty of small songbirds singing the songs of spring. I can hear the titmice singing, “Peter Peter Peter” everywhere I go. Did you know that humming and singing are soothing to the nervous system? I wonder if this is true for birds too?

I’m still seeing dark-eyed juncos. It’s a weird thing that happens when a species leaves for the year. I don’t always notice it right away and then suddenly I just realize I haven’t seen them in a while.

It’s been a while since we had a still, sunny morning. This was March 10, 2024.

This is one mile in on the wooded trail by the creek, near where the trout lily patch lives. It’s not that often I make it that far before sunrise!

The little cooties are so funny to watch. They move as a unit but then they splash, jump over each other, and wriggle about. They seem to do this from before the sun comes up until after the sun goes down.

What are you enjoying this week?