Ah Ha!!

I told you spring was coming!!

I spotted this guy (girl?) in our tree this afternoon, singing his little heart out. The robins know and are anticipating the first juicy worm of the season once some snow has cleared. In the meantime, they enjoy our leftover crab apples.

I love having a crab apple tree in our front yard - the street is lined with these trees and they provide crab apples through the winter for many birds until bugs are available.

Another sure sign of spring is that the birds are singing much more heartily these days. Mixed with sunshine it is heaven to my senses!
The robin was not my only birdwatching thrill today. The cedar waxwings are back. Up until a few years ago, I had never really seen this kind of bird other than pictures. One year our yard was suddenly flooded with over 50 of them so I got a close up view and learned about them. Here's a few shots of ones I saw today.... Cedar waxwings can be very comical if you watch them with binoculars. If their throats get completely full of crab apples, they will pass the next one on down the line to the next bird. They will often toss one back and forth to each other. Apparently, if the crab apples are fermented, the birds will get rather tipsy. These sleek birds have cockatiel-like crests, yellow bellies, and the mature ones have red bars on the back of their wings and a yellow tip on the end of their black tails. And they all wear masks.




Once they have pretty well depleted all the trees in the neighbourhood, they fly off together in flocks to find other food sources, and you might not see them again for another year.
Last year we never saw them at all, so I feel lucky that they are back for a visit. Tomorrow I will try putting out apple pieces to see if they go for them...and maybe I'll get better shots of them. And maybe next year they'll remember that bird-lady who puts out food for them and they'll come back for sure.



There may be more snow around the corner, but listen to the birds.

They know warm weather's not too far off!!