To Everything There is a Season

It began with jubilant skeins of of geese flying in from the south and singing their return, with ducks splashing in local rivers and much quacking in roadside puddles, with a single heron perched on the frozen shore of Dalhousie Lake and wondering why on earth she had come home so early in the season.

It continued with larks and killdeer, beaky snipe and woodcock, with a handful of plucky robins, the graceful "v" shapes (dihedrals) of five turkey vultures soaring majestically over the Two Hundred Acre Wood and rocking effortlessly back and forth in their flight. From below, the light caught their silvery flight feathers and dark wing linings, and the great birds were as magnificent as any eagle.

A solitary goshawk perched in a tree on the hill, and a male harrier described circles over the western field. Both birds were hungry after their long journey north, and they trained their fierce yellow eyes on the field below, always on the lookout for a good meal.

This morning, a male cardinal is singing his heart out in the ash tree in the garden, and an unidentified warbler lifts its voice somewhere in the darkness.

Even the wet weather foretold for this day will be a friend.