Its a Seesaw

Snow geese and the Gibbous Phase Moon

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

It can be a crazy time of the year, March.  One day is very hopeful for spring thaw and another blankets the ground again.  So it is each year, and this morning was no different when the landscape looked like winter once more, yet this afternoon the landscape's a blank canvas again and sunny.

The thing I like best about March is the sudden movement of the wildlife, with new species appearing, and - the sounds!

Last week it was difficult getting any work done for a couple days.  Every time I'd get in the middle of something, Georgie might show up and say "Have you looked outside"?  I'd stop what I was doing and go out to see clouds of Snow Geese moving through...it was really a fun sight.  Other times during those days, I'd actually hear the geese as they flew lower and over the studio.

White-tail Deer crossing Waterman Creek

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

The deer herd has shown its true numbers during the afternoon hours the past 3 weeks too.  Each winter, after the deer season has ended, some time seems to need to pass before we can get a good idea of what the spring population will look like.  They all seem so comfortable with daylight again, now that its been some time since the shooting stopped!  It looks like we'd better keep the fencing around the smaller trees in the yard for a few more weeks...each day we have a skiff of snow, we see deer tracks all over the yard...next to the house and studio.  Our pussy willow has become a salad bar again; we don't keep it corralled - the pruning doesn't seem to bother that bush too much.

The Robins are back, and the Juncos have returned on their trip north too.  The male Goldfinches are starting to show their molt to bright yellow, and the Cedar Waxwings are taunting me from the bushes each morning I come out...I say "taunting" because they seem to make a game of keeping their distance when I appear with my camera.

Tomorrow is the vernal equinox...the first day of spring, but next week sounds like we'll be getting chilled down a little again.   Its like a seesaw, and like that seesaw was as a kid, its fun!