world is mud-luscious...and all the...
ee cummings
Hi! Here at the beach we don't look for the first robin of spring....
(We might wait forever---or til October anyway!) What I eagerly await each year is the return of the oystercatchers.
Traditionally they appear on St Paddy's Day, but last week's high winds must have blown them here earlier....
And on Saturday (March 12th), as I walked on the empty white sand, I was thrilled to see the arrival of the clown-like big birds...
Even as I walked that afternoon small flocks of four or six were flying in from the south.
This is what awaits them here, no wonder they come back each March!
They are quite shy right now. This is the threesome that lives just east of my beach and have been coming for maybe 8 years now. They are fairly tame....
But they don't like their pictures taken, I am paparazzi to them.
Here's the very shy pair who live on my dunes...
And other pairs and threesomes* spread all up and down the three or four miles of my shore. I was so happy t see them!
And later to find, in a patch of dune scrub---bayberry and beach pines---this magnificent tree-sized pussywillow, covered with grey velvet catkins.
Ah...March. So sweet.
PS Do you have a special bird you watch for? My parents always noted the return of their Mr. Greenbird, a charteuese pine warbler who came every year. Or maybe you search for the first crocus? Snowdrops....mud? lol! Tell me!
love
lizzy
gone to the beach..................
(*Ornithogists differ on the reason Oystercatchers often live in groups of three. I think it's a big baby who won't leave home! Or a maybe female with two husbands. Bird sites say it is a male with two females but in all the years I have watched the OCs the groups of three only have one nest...so one female, in my opinion.)
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