It's As If Someone Flipped A Switch
Tags: Nature
Spring has arrived over the last week and it's happened suddenly. The weather went overnight from feeling like winter to looking and sounding like spring. There are new birdcalls of birds calling for mates. The day before yesterday I started hearing the owl calls again. Who-who, who-cooks-for-you. I love hearing the owls! The bulbs are sending up leaves and the shrubs are budding. It's time to make cuttings of plants that have overwintered in the potting shed.
Last Sunday we saw an interesting track in the snow across the frozen cove from Charlie's to the opposite shore. It seemed to be a combination of paw prints and drag slides, similar to the dotted lines in the road, only with paw prints. I took the dogs for a walk on the peninsula across the cove to look at the tracks at the other side to see where they led, where I met up with Hughie MacDonald. Hughie seems to think we have seals coursing across the coves and through the woods on the peninsulas. That is one busy seal. There are tracks coming and going across the next cove as well, across that peninsula and into Graveyard Cove and on into Oyster Cove. I know the seals are there but I never see them. Perhaps that's what the dogs bark at early in the morning. They seem to know to steer clear. There were also paw prints from what is probably a fox, that grizzled, old strawberry blond fox that looks like a weathered, wily old male. A fox version of a tom cat - a "tom fox".
Likewise, last week Flyn came across two raccoons. He went up to them, almost, but held back a little. Smart dog. Raccoons can do serious damage to a dog.
I have seen crows gathering beakfuls of grass for their nests. Maybe this year I'll be treated again to bald eagles gathering sticks for their aeries. I hope so. All the clumps of dog hair I gather are going into the side yard for the birds to use in their new nests. That should keep the chicks nice and warm.
Spring has arrived over the last week and it's happened suddenly. The weather went overnight from feeling like winter to looking and sounding like spring. There are new birdcalls of birds calling for mates. The day before yesterday I started hearing the owl calls again. Who-who, who-cooks-for-you. I love hearing the owls! The bulbs are sending up leaves and the shrubs are budding. It's time to make cuttings of plants that have overwintered in the potting shed.
Last Sunday we saw an interesting track in the snow across the frozen cove from Charlie's to the opposite shore. It seemed to be a combination of paw prints and drag slides, similar to the dotted lines in the road, only with paw prints. I took the dogs for a walk on the peninsula across the cove to look at the tracks at the other side to see where they led, where I met up with Hughie MacDonald. Hughie seems to think we have seals coursing across the coves and through the woods on the peninsulas. That is one busy seal. There are tracks coming and going across the next cove as well, across that peninsula and into Graveyard Cove and on into Oyster Cove. I know the seals are there but I never see them. Perhaps that's what the dogs bark at early in the morning. They seem to know to steer clear. There were also paw prints from what is probably a fox, that grizzled, old strawberry blond fox that looks like a weathered, wily old male. A fox version of a tom cat - a "tom fox".
Likewise, last week Flyn came across two raccoons. He went up to them, almost, but held back a little. Smart dog. Raccoons can do serious damage to a dog.
I have seen crows gathering beakfuls of grass for their nests. Maybe this year I'll be treated again to bald eagles gathering sticks for their aeries. I hope so. All the clumps of dog hair I gather are going into the side yard for the birds to use in their new nests. That should keep the chicks nice and warm.