It’s been a long, cold winter here. But the month of March always gives me hope for spring. And this year is no different. Even though white patches of snow still dot the ground, I know winter’s days are numbered.
Yesterday I saw squirrels running through the woods hopping from limb to limb in a kind of feverish ecstasy that enters all of our souls to one degree or another with the coming of spring.
Our first robin is back. (A quick google search will tell you that some of the robins never leave. We, however, have not seen one solitary robin at our feeders the entire winter until the past few days. You can judge for yourself.)
And a red-winged blackbird has been visiting our feeders. (Websites like the Cornell lab of Ornithology will tell you that these birds are here year-round. It also states, “In the North, their early arrival and tumbling song are happy indications of the return of spring.” Again, you can judge for yourself.)
Spring is coming. I can see it in the birds, and feel it in the air.
Soon.
Christine M. Grote 
That’s a great close up of the red-winged blackbird. They’re so quick I can never get a good close up even with a zoom.
I had been trying to get a picture for about three days. They are quick, and easy to scare off. I would have preferred a better shot, but I took what I could get.
as many red-winged blackbirds that we had back in Nova Scotia I never did get ONE good shot of them! don’t you just love the return of the birds though – a very hopeful sign of Spring.
It took me three days to get thus one. I am hopeful about spring.
Beautiful shots of the birds. The red-winged blackbirds were always a harbinger of spring for me when we lived in NE Ohio. We have huge flocks of them here on the Eastern Shore. Like the Snow Geese, they seem to be waiting to take off and go somewhere else.
Thanks Robin. I never realized that about the red-winged blackbirds. We don’t typically see that many of them at our house any time of year. Aren’t you north from here? I am trying to figure out where the red-wings and geese would go.
I’m south of you now. Not by much if you look at the map (we’re not far from the Virginia border on the Delmarva peninsula), but it seems a world away in terms of climate and flora. The Snow Geese go to Alaska and Canada for the summer. The red-winged blackbirds must scatter as I’ve seen them almost everywhere east of the Mississippi, and even a little to the west of the Mississippi.
And yet the blackbirds can be so fierce for a few weeks in the spring when they’re nesting.
I’ve heard that before (and maybe from you), but I’ve yet to witness it.
IN regards to your question at my blog, I haven’t seen those videos, but I’ll look around for them!
We have had robins pretty much all winter…though they do clump up in big flocks in the late fall and are still in flocks today…so they are not indicating spring here yet. And I have not heard or seen a red-winged yet. They are my true sign that spring has arrived. We still have a few feet of snow…I hope they are smart enough to stay south another week or two. Thanks for stopping by my blog!
We had a crazy flock of Robins here in the fall. I’d never seen that before. We only have a solitary blackbird. Maybe he was scouting conditions out. We only have a spot of snow here and there. Hopefully it will stay that way.
I’ll know it’s spring when the starlings stop raiding the feeders.
I know! They’re driving is crazy too. But now that you mention it, I haven’t seen them lately. 🙂
Two redwings at my platform feeder this morning on the north shore of Lake Ontario, east of Toronto. That’s number 44 for my list of birds seen at my feeder over the last 7 years. They look just like your picture – very little red on the wing – so I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.
I should keep count of them too. We don’t see them a lot here at our home, but there are lots of them at a nearby park where I often walk. Thanks for stopping by. We had a beautiful, warm (in the mid-60s) day here today, so here’s hoping.