It’s difficult not to fall into the same old patterns year after year. Spring arrived last week and the days are now getting noticeably longer. Exaggerating the effect is the fact that we also decided to change the clocks.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve gone through that period when you don’t really quite know what time it is, which adds an element of the surreal to even the most normal situation. As a result, if you’re anything like me, you look for any signs of normalcy that can help you through this period of transition.
My automatic go-to resource is the list of birds that I keep. The March list is always a little longer than the February list, and that is the result of a few early arrivals that indicate a wave of migrants is heading our way. This wave showed up at my yard on March 16, but it might be more accurate to say that I noticed the arrival of this wave on March 16. For all I know, the birds were here on Friday, March 15, but I was at work and didn’t (couldn’t) notice.
The brown-headed cowbirds made an early appearance this year, but it seems there’s always the chance of seeing a cowbird on any day during the winter, so that bird isn’t always a great indicator. Still, the sighting of a single male cowbird on Jan. 13 was noteworthy. A month later, on Feb. 17, I spotted the first red-winged blackbird of the year. That might seem shockingly early for a bird that likes marshland filled with cattails and frogs, but it actually fits in quite nicely with the early end of normal.
A month later, on March 16, the grackles showed up. This actually seemed to be a rather late arrival date, but when I went back through my records I discovered it was simply on the late end of normal. These birds are somewhat at the mercy of the weather and a snowstorm on Feb. 27 followed by a cold spell in early March must have been enough to get the grackles to drag their feet.
Other noteworthy arrivals on March 16 were Canada geese and song sparrows. With regard to Canada geese, March 16 is right in the meaty part of “normal” and they really settled things down. The same is true for song sparrows. My earliest record is March 1, and my latest sighting has been on April 6, so all is well on that front. 2019 has been a “quiet” year so far, but no alarm bells are ringing. There was one development back in February, however, that added a real interesting note of the unusual to the otherwise “normal” pattern.
I was out in my driveway, putting out some food scraps for the crows that live in my neighborhood, and I had paused to enjoy the feeling of the warm morning sun upon my face. I remember closing my eyes, turning toward that beautiful sun, and taking a long, soothing breath. This was the same morning that I saw my first red-winged blackbird of the year and I was already in high spirits. I opened my eyes, took another deep breath, sighed with contentment and turned toward the front door.
As I took a step or two, I noticed a red squirrel on my deck. This was not out of the ordinary in any way, but there was something odd enough about the squirrel that forced my brain out of “happy” mode and into “what the …” mode. What the heck was I actually looking at? The squirrel was a little too big and a little too brown. Then I noticed it was a little too large to be a squirrel at all. Fully awake now, I found myself staring face-to-face with a short-tailed weasel.
My mind reached for my camera, but it was sitting inside on the desk by the kitchen window. Even if I had had the camera with me, there wouldn’t have been time to raise it, focus and fire, but time slowed down and a five-second encounter felt like five minutes. For the first time in more than 20 years, and only the second time in my life, there was a weasel right in front of me and my brain suddenly reminded me of an odd sighting that had occurred back in October or November. I had seen a mammal under my deck, about the size of a squirrel, but in a place that was decidedly wrong for a squirrel. Could it be?
For years, I have sat on my deck and watched the chipmunks rob me blind in August and September. For years, I have wondered where the weasels were. How could such a bounty of food go unnoticed and unutilized? Well, this has been a remarkable winter with regard to predators. Back in February, I found evidence of a bobcat in the snow behind my house and now I’ve actually laid eyes upon a live weasel that may very well have set up shop under my deck.
I haven’t gone into great detail about weasels today in the hopes that in the near future I will finally be able to add a new photo to my collection and do a proper job of explaining the natural history of such a beautiful animal. In the meantime, I will keep my eyes open for new arrivals. Next week marks the beginning of April, which also means my absolute favorite day of the year is about to occur. I’ll save the details on that for next time, though.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 21 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and Massachusetts State Parks and currently teaches high school biology and physics. Visit speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.