Showing posts with label VT Spring photos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VT Spring photos. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

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

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Phoebes call for spring @ Jericho, Vermont

  














 Crocuses in need of sunglasses. 





                                                                                                   FOR RENT





















Insects oh insects, 
where art thou?

Come out of your
shells
and hibernations
tis time to 
celebrate spring
and time
for me to eat.

Feebee, feebee, feebee
can you not hear me?

Spring has arrived
no longer a mirage in Vermont.

Fly about
Fly to me
I am a Phoebe
and 

am
HUNGRY!









   Why not forgo mowing a portion of your lawn this year. 
           Good for the birds
                Good for our ears
                    Aesthetically pleasing to see tall grasses
                        swaying in the breeze. 









 Rolling, rolling, rolling
keep them wheels a rolling

Snow fell
snow fall
snowball

rolling rolling rolling
gently down the slope

melting melting melting

spring flowing flowing flowing.



















Walk
outside
today!
Stop, Look, Listen
Nature will astound you!


Vermont Birds and Words