It's Spring!

Spring is here!  Spring is here!

Spring is that delicious time of year when the Earth renews its loveliness and reveals secrets once hidden in the frozen ground.  Let's celebrate!

I love the contrast of the riotous pink against the stark bare tree branches.


Magnolias are so glorious!

A robin delights in the day.

Flowers are medicine for the soul.

species tulip

redbuds!

Daffodils dance in the breeze! (12 second video)

Click to activate.

Spring audaciously revels in its glorious renewal!

My Blogging Business Artisans team on etsy hosts a new Challenge every month. The purpose is to encourage us to explore our creativity, to stretch our imaginations.  
Cynthia of Antiquity Travelers set forth the following Challenge for the month of March:

"Early Spring.  Since our friend Punxsutawney Phil said we'd have an early start to spring...let's celebrate!  and hope he is right (fingers crossed)."

(He WAS right!  at least where I live.)


QUESTION:  What inspires you to create?

© photos by me  all rights reserved 

Nests

Carolina wrens' nest is shaped like an igloo.

3 bright turquoise eggs in a robins' nest

Only one baby robin hatched.

A baby barred owl is sitting on his makeshift plastic crate "nest."

LINKS:
more photos and the story of Barry the barred owl HERE

photos and the story of the baby robin HERE
Carolina wren photos and information HERE

I'm linking up with my favorite teacher, Ms Jenny Matlock, as we work our way through the alphabet.  Please do go visit the other students, for you never know what gems you may find--humor, poignancy, information, visions of far away places, stuff you've never even dreamed of!  Check it out HERE.  You may even wish to join in yourself!  This week our letter is "N." 

 

photos by me © 2011 and 2012 all rights reserved

nest

This June, I watched a robin build a nest in a blue spruce tree outside my window.  amazing what workmanship can be wrought with a beak!  She wove grasses and twigs together and then padded the nest with mud.  When the nest was complete, she laid 3 eggs over several days.

Only one egg hatched.  This baby robin is all mouth.  A mother robin not only knows when to feed her babies, she knows the proper combination of bugs and worms for each feeding.  

With worm in beak, the mother robin is perched on the dumpster which is next to the nest tree.

snoozing (about 2 days old)

snoozing (about a week old)

starting to check out the world beyond the nest

fully feathered at nearly 2 weeks old and preparing to fledge

LINK:

American Robin  a plethora of information!  answers to more questions than you could EVER think to ask!

a little background and some information--

We just bought a house and were preparing for a tear-off re-roofing.  I noticed a robin starting to build a nest in a tree right next to the dumpster.  Oh no!  Can I move the nest? I wondered.  That led me on a journey of internet research and the discovery of the wonderful site in the link above. 

What I found out-- 
► Robins carefully choose the site of their nests, memorizing all details of location.  If the nest is moved, they won't recognize it.

► After laying eggs, the mother sits on the nest, rotating the eggs and keeping them at the proper temperature and humidity levels.

► Robins have 2-3 nestings per year with the same partner.  (They do not mate for life.) 
► Most robins die their first year, but if they make it beyond, they live for 5-6 years.
► robin songs:
true song a territorial declaration
dawn song another territorial delcaration 

"peek" and "tut" calls are heard in alarm situations

whinny heard in mildly alarming situations

"seeee" call given in response to the presence of an aerial predator

"zeeup" call a contact note heard mainly during migration

I'm participating in Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.  Come and join in the fun!  You will be charmed and even enlightened in a delightful way!  See more entries HERE.  This week our letter is "N."



photos by me © 2011

Happy May Day!

"....All things seem possible in May." ~Edwin Way Teale

Tis like the birthday of the world,

When earth was born in bloom... ~Thomas Hood

Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature's rebirth? ~Edward Giobbi

When April steps aside for May,

Like diamonds all the rain-drops glisten;

Fresh violets open every day:

To some new bird each hour we listen.

~Lucy Larcom

For winter's rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins;

The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins;

And time remembered is grief forgotten,

And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,

And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins."

~ Algernon Charles Swinburne (1890)

NOTES: white crysanthemums from my garden, azaela in North Carolina in the spring, yellow blooming palo verde tree (Arizona), robin and baby in holly tree, cactus bloom (Arizona)

photos by me© 2006-2009