Spring is right around the corner!

Spring is right around the corner, or so three little birds and two squirrels told me yesterday. 

I'm working the third shift this week, and tried to sleep yesterday.  No one wanted me to sleep.  Dogs want to go out.  Phone rings.  Heating oil man comes.  Each time, I'd wake up and then it'd take about another hour before I could go back to sleep.

During one of my sleep interruptions, I looked out the bathroom window, and there was the first lone robin of the season.  He performed his tell-tale scuttle: head up listening intently; head down and quick shuffle a foot or so across the grass; stop with head up listening intently; then head down and another quick run.  He stopped at a puddle of rain water to drink.  As he drank, not one, but two bluebirds flew down to join him for a drink at the watering hole.  They were beautiful sky blue with a patch of ruddy bronze on their throats. 

The first of the spring birds have arrived so spring has to be right around the corner.

As if the treat of seeing the two bluebirds and robin weren't enough, two squirrels visited the bird feeder, but these weren't your every day squirrels.  I am almost positive they were our endangered Delmarva Fox Squirrels.  They were huge and sported a tail almost as big as their bodies.  The one on the feeder kept his tail straight out and the one on the ground kept her tail flat on her back, curling slightly at the tip to the back of her neck. 

I assume they were male and female since they were together and Delmarva Fox Squirrels give birth in February or early March.  If they were truly Delmarva Fox Squirrels, then they are preparing to mate and nest now, which surely is another sign that spring is right around the corner.

Keith was at work so he missed the exciting news.  "Robins," he said, "stay practically year-round now-a-days, thanks to global warming, and our woods are too thick for Delmarva Fox Squirrels."

He's skeptical, but I put binoculars by the upstairs window and the downstairs window so he can see it all for himself.  I know they were Delmarva Fox Squirrels. 




© 2008
Mark Darien
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