We haven’t had snow or bitter cold in a while now, and more and more of the world is behaving as if this is spring. In addition to white snowdrops blooming close to the ground, and slightly taller, buttercup-yellow aconite, we now have crocuses celebrating in Easter colors and, in the last couple days, hellebores muscling their way onto the scene. This rainy afternoon, Sue and I saw some Katharine Hodgkin dwarf irises blooming—the first I’ve ever seen.
Sap is rising in the trees, most noticeably in the weeping willows, which have become quite yellow. Last week, Sue and I even noticed sap rising in the stump of a recently cut tree. The xylem cells were still sending sap upward from the roots, giving the wood of the stump a curious pattern of wetness.
And, speaking of a curious pattern of wetness, the Parkway Meadows apartment complex on Nixon Road had its in-ground sprinklers on, a couple days ago. One thing wrong with that was that it was raining at the time. But the really big thing wrong is, it’s still winter. The danger of freezing is definitely not past. Mid-May is when you can count on that. Maybe Parkway Meadows got its M-months mixed up.
Rhonda and I walked together yesterday morning, our route taking us through Arbor Hills Nature Area. Arbor Hills is a smallish park with some pleasant features, including a boardwalk through a wetland and, on the way back out to Green Road, a view of another small pond. By that pond, there was great honking and carrying on of the goose persuasion, but we couldn’t see the geese. At length, I looked up, and there they were, on the roof of a house.
Roof sitting is not a usual pursuit for Canada geese but, for the last three years, there’s been a goose in the area that enjoys spending time up high while stationary. I’d been looking for that goose this week, and was delighted to find it again. One day last year, I watched it calling in other geese until there were three of them on a lofty housetop. It turns out Rhonda’s seen the odd-duck goose before, too.
She and I walked on, arriving at another pond along Green Road just in time for avian drama. A Canada-goose couple and a swan couple were at odds over which duo should take possession of the primo nesting spot on the pond—the top of a disused muskrat lodge. The swans have claimed that spot for years, except for last year, when the geese got it.
Swans are larger and more aggressive than geese, but both swans and geese feel strongly about territory and nesting sites. Smart betting might be on the swans, but there is last year’s precedent to consider. This morning’s squabble was impressively raucous, although the outcome wasn’t clear. Only time will reveal the eventual winners.
While the swans and geese duked it out, the smaller birds on that pond did their best to fade into the background, or slipped away entirely. By the time Rhonda and I were ready to move along, the big birds were taking a break, and the little ones were on their way back. Red-winged blackbirds have staked out their own preferred nesting sites there, and the males were gathering in the trees on our side of the pond to inform us that their welcome mats were definitely not out for humans. The females have made it north now, too, so the males are getting pretty bold about shooing off unwanted visitors.
Monday, on the way to Dexter for lunch with a friend, my husband and I drove past the pond at the corner of Warren and Nixon roads. And there on a log were two little turtles basking in the sun. They were soaking up some warmth and not bothering each other or passersby. In fact, have you ever tried to sneak up on a basking turtle? I used to try it regularly, when there was more tree cover at the edge of Thurston Pond and our daughter walked to elementary school through the woods there. I got close to baskers a few times, tiptoeing from tree to tree, but the turtles always sussed me out. It was as if they could pick up my footsteps’ vibrations in the ground.
A bufflehead couple landed on Thurston Pond as the dog and I passed there a couple days ago. They are lovely little black-and-white ducks. We haven’t had a pair nest on the pond in the decades we’ve lived in the neighborhood, but I live in hope that they might.
8 March 2024
I’ve seen the roof-sitting from Canada geese quite frequently. One feels like one is being watched by unfriendly eyes and evaluated for threat level.
I had to immediately google “Katharine Hodgkin dwarf irises”. So pretty!