Warmth and Opportunity

Clearbrook Road in Burlington

Ferns unfolding

Today the temperature reached 70.  It felt really wonderful to walk along Clearbrook Road by the Nepaug reservoir.

Ferns are unfolding, skunk cabbage is in full bloom, wood anemones are blooming along the streams, and wild strawberries are starting to bloom!

Skunk cabbage blooming

The spring migration is in full swing.  Birds that spend the winter in South America have started swarming

Wood anemones

Wild strawberries are blooming!

 north.  They will spend the summer stuffing themselves and their babies with insects before heading back south for the winter.  Most of "our" birds only spend 5 months here each year.

Yellow birch flowers

Usually the birds don't reach us until the leaves are out.  Then they jump around in the tops of the trees, hiding behind the leaves and taunting us.

Yellow-rumped warbler, exposed.

This year the polar vortex has kept the leaves from opening.  That means that the migrating birds are exposed as they hop around in the branches.  What an opportunity to see them!