Things are beginning to heat up up here. Not weatherwise, although it did manage to hit zero today, which is probably a first since September or October. But the birds definitely know that spring is a foot. A little more than a week ago I saw the first Glaucous Gulls of the season, and counted 21. Three days later I counted 34, yesterday it was 97 and today over 200. I've yet to see an Iceland Gull this year, there are always at least a couple. This was the closest, but I still couldn't turn it into one despite my best efforts.
I also saw my first Snow Buntings of the year, even though there apparently have been some up since the middle of April. The males have started to arrive and today, while Hilary napped in the truck, I sat at First Bridge and listened to two staking out their territories in song. Soon all of the tundra and rock fields will be alive with bird song, but as I sat there I drank in the exuberance of the season. It was renewing, and I was so caught up in it I didn't even reach for the camera next to me when one lit on a nearby rock and poured forth his best effort.
No where was this exuberance more evident than with the Ravens. Most seem to be travelling in pairs these days, but in the afternoons there seems to be a loose gathering of them all on the lower southern slopes of King George Mountain. It is almost impossible to take it all in, and even harder not to be buoyed by it all. Ravens singing, displaying, raising their "eyebrow" crests, puffing their chests out, unfurling their neck ruffs. Fights took place as they always do, I saw at least three out there, the birds locked together tumbling towards earth. None were as spectacular as the one I witnessed last week, the birds tumbling together from an impossible height, easily more than 500 feet, already locked together when they came into view through the office window. They tumble and I stood to follow them to the ground, and at the last possible moment they released, and saved themselves from the up rushing tundra.
Several birds at this conclave were having snow baths, relishing the warmth, primping themselves, others walked together, looking for all of the world like a couple out for a stroll in the park. I saw two gathering feathers, another sign that Spring's renewal is upon us. All too soon the pleading croaks of fledgling will resound throughout town.
Small wonder that Spring inspires poets.