Peepers and other Rites of Spring

About a week ago I heard the first chirps of the spring peepers. The sounds are spring is to be soon upon us. The little frogs that make the distinctive peeps are a more reliable signal of the inevitability of March than the robins. Once they begin peeping, I’ve never known them to go back into hibernation again.

Out the kitchen window the rite of battle over the bird boxes has begun. Every year it is a pleasure to see which brand of bird wins rights to the house by the field gate. The bird box has been there since the fence was built, the spring of 1992 and every year one species or another of bird has raised families in it. Our favorite renters are the blue birds. They were my mother’s favorite bird and certainly their striking blue, the multiple broods they raises and their relish of the insects that inhabit our lawn all add to the good karma they bring when they are the inhabitants of the house.

The tree swallows are our second choice. In the pecking order of birds, the swallows bully the blue birds, but they have many merits of their own. Least favorite are the house sparrows. These are the littlest of the inhabitants of the box directly in front of the kitchen window, but they can be the most aggressive, throwing out both the swallows and the blue birds. Their brown plumage and their many numbers make them only an ordinary renter. We’d rather have the blue birds. I’m not sure who’ll win out for this year’s prize spot, but the blue birds certainly scoped out the box last fall.

All along the fence line there are bird boxes of all sizes and materials, and it is interesting to watch all the feathered families take advantage of them, watching several generations of the same species come back to their own boxes year after year. In winter the bird seed is at the feeder and the flash of colors and shapes is always a delight, but by spring the seed is cut off and the birds must fend for themselves. And to note, that their favorite nesting material is the long, soft horsetail strands that the horses leave against the fence line.

Finally, this evening, as I walked back to the pond that lays in the woods at the edge of the property, checking to see if the earliest daffodils were in bloom, the dogs and I spooked two pair of mallards and a dozen wood duck. Mallards are common; wood ducks are not. It was a good thought that my woods might be home to the family or two of wood ducks.