Spring---far and wee

Imagine my snow-encrusted amazement when I walked outside today and the breeze was balmy and the weak March sun was hot on my face. Indeed the little balloon man of the poem must be scampering far and wee (the entire poem is at the end of this post) ---giving us a taste of June in still-wintery March! The thermometer in my car read 75*!

The high winds that brought my oystercatchers home also brought the early arrival of just one piping plover! Perhaps a male who came ahead to stake out his spot?

They are not due til early April...and he must have been quite aghast at the huge earthmovers that level my beach sand in preparation for summer.(Winter tides and wind make the beach relatively high and narrow.)

can you find him? right in the center.....


Piping lovers are very cute but not my fav, since their needs take over so very much of my beach from April 1 to early October.

Huge areas will be fenced in the next week to protect the little guys' nesting places, but usually they lay their eggs right in the middle of our beach and some years at high tide no human space is left.

I also made a trip to the bird sanctuary...

 to see if the osprey pair (aka fish hawks) has returned to their roost. These are glorious huge birds, like marsh-dwelling eagles, I always think.


this entire huge marsh, many acres, supports only one osprey nest

 The enormous construction on the pole in the middle of the marsh seemed in very good repair...and I have seen hawks (no idea what species though) since February, cruising my beach dunes for mice or voles or rabbits.

No sign of life at the ospreys' nest however, just a flapping white bag that the ospreys use to line their babies' driftwood cradle. The ospreys are another spring bird I quite eagerly await.

Later, as I walked home tonight, sadly seeing that Ratty's den opening has been covered by the bulldozers! (Ratty is a misplaced marsh muskrat who lives in my dunes)...the last full moon of winter rose over the white sand.

Tomorrow (well, today now!), spring is here. Now we must just hang on til summer....

love

   lizzy

gone to the beach....

2010 nesting pair

territory of just one nesting pair of ospreys!

in just-

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
               e.e. cummings