Whirlwind

Spring Migration

It seems like everything is moving so fast, a constant feeling of not enough time. Spending every minute I can outside during spring migration and somehow trying to manage the other demands of life is both glorious and overwhelming. I can’t believe it’s been a month since the egrets and the loons graced me with their presence - it seems like just a breath ago. Soon - hopefully - things will calm down and steady out. Soon I will write about it all. In the meantime, these are my “notes” on all I wish to write about.

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Soon I will write about it all.

I will write of the large flocks of iridescent tree swallows, dark purple martins, brown northern rough-winged swallows and reddish barn swallows flying just above the fog and water like glittering jewels spread all across the lake.

I will write of the white Forster’s terns with their screeches, how they scratch their heads in mid-air and make twisting dives head first into the lake. I will write of the larger Caspian terms with their carrot beaks and their loud, raspy, uplifting screeches making sure I see them as they pass overhead.

I will write of the call of the loon echoing over the lake all too briefly at sunrise. I will write of the willets, looking so plain in their brown coats until they open their wings and unfurl a gorgeous pattern of browns and white. Of the way they chatter with each other quietly in their own little symphony as if to say “I”m still here, are you?”

I will write of the fog which makes the early morning seem like a mystical dream until the sun comes out and burns it away. I will write of the pied-billed grebes with their black breeding chin patch puttering near the shore. I will write of the big, black cormorants and the amazing way those black wings rise up out of the water, full of water droplets glistening in the sun.

I will write of the beaver swimming into the waves, gently eating branches on the shore or making his morning lap around the lake. I will write about the glorious bald eagles circling overhead slowly, working to provide for their young in the nest.

I will write of the maroon and blue Wilson’s phalaropes visiting me for the first time! Six individuals moving nearly in harmony both in the air and on the ground, busy gathering tiny morsels I can’t see.

I will write of the small house wren loudly staking it’s claim to a neighborhood bird house. Of the barn swallows returning and doing battle for the best nesting locations, often located in buildings busy with humans which they don’t seem to mind.

I will write of my encounter with a beautiful - and powerful - bobcat. Of watching her watching me with equal curiosity. Of watching her hunt for something I couldn’t see and later seeing her strolling down the running path unhurried and seemingly unbothered.

I will write of the warblers - the yellow warblers bathed in sunlight with reddish markings on their breast, the yellow-rumped warblers with their pirate masks and “butter butts”, the northern parula’s with their rising trill that sounds like someone running fingers up the piano and the golden-winged warbler I almost missed as it flashed in and out of the high branches.

I will write of the vireos, voracious in their bug eating but taking time to battle each other for supremacy. Yellow-throated, blue-headed, red-eyed and white-eyed vireos each with their unique and aptly described plumage staking out their space in the world with their individual songs.

I will write of the rich blue color of the indigo buntings as they sing for their spaces and their mates. Sometimes appearing almost black in the shadows, sometimes a deep, rich, inky blue and occasionally - in the right light - nearly turquoise or teal.

I will write of the herons, nesting in their rookeries so early that their young have already started to appear. Young herons, growing into their gangly, long legs and beaks, trying to figure out the way of things so much like teen-age boys.

I will write of the shy, brown Swainson’s thrush with their flute like song and tendency to hide in the bushes coming to see me on the edge of the water one perfect morning. I will write of sparrows, coots, baby geese, cardinals, robins, flycatchers and every other bird migrating or returning for summer on the winds of spring.

I will write of the avocets with their blue legs, stunning black and white wings and long, curved beak who came impossibly close and let me see the the edges of their feathers, the reflection in their eyes and even their tongues. I will write of the shy marbled godwit with it’s huge reddish wings and foot long bill who despite it’s hesitancy agreed to come in close for photographs.

I will write of the spotted sandpipers, the least sandpipers and the killdeer who make a lot of noise but still occasionally seem to nearly mistake me for a rock to climb on. Who run around the shore line at sunrise and remind me that everything moves in the stillness.

I will write of how very blessed I am to sit among these creatures even for such a short time. How the whirlwind of it all seems like a brand new gift each and every year. How the forgetting makes it all the more magical. I will write of the magic and majesty even as I hope to experience it again. Soon.

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Meanwhile I have thousands of pictures to post that could easily carry us until fall - but of course there will be more wonders along the way.