To Bird or Garden - that is the question.

New growth. 

Rebirth. 

                              Hope.


Warm after cold. Light after dark.

A riot of color after months of monochrome.

SPRING!!

We have been reveling in signs of spring on walks and at home.

By early April, color had returned to Woodside in Essex.

At Niquette Bay State Park in late April, we found blooming Dutchman’s Breeches, Bloodroot, Spring Beauties, Dog-tooth Violet (Trout Lily) and a few early Hepaticas.

A pair of Common Snipe kindly (but warily) posed for photos beside the parking lot at Sand Bar State Park. 

Nearby, a Canada Goose with attitude strutted around with a straw hanging out of its mouth – very cool.

Garter Snakes – five of them – coiled, uncoiled, writhed, and wriggled along the South Hero Marsh Trail.

We even found a smiling elephant when we walked the Beeken Rivershore Preserve in Richmond!

On a UVM Friday Field Walk to the Goodsell Ridge Preserve and Fisk Quarry (Isle la Motte), we were more interested in very ancient and very hard life forms.

It’s hard being both a birder and a gardener! Every single day in April and May, we are pulled in different directions. New birds are coming every single day! Woodside in all its spring beauty is just a short drive away. Warblers might be back, without us there to welcome them!

But the raised beds await our attention – and our efforts, our sweat, our compost, our seeds.



In an astonishingly short time, they’ll be full of tender young green plants. 

Soon our work will be rewarded with fresh veggies galore. 

   Spring in Vermont sputters, then it explodes in vibrancy. Suddenly, even though the daylight hours are longer, there is seemingly not enough time to view the returning birds, tend to gardens, and just sit and observe nature birthing!

Maeve and Bernie

                                                                                                      

                                                                       Vermont Birds and Words