Spring Light

Living in spring's paradise. This light regime lasted for about 20 seconds, and then it all went dark. Moments like this are why I carry my cameras everywhere I go. So when I'm smashed by the beauty of a cloud, a landscape, a flower or butterfly, I can share it with you.

So long we waited this winter, and we waited all of March and April, too, for some sunshine, some warmth. It was very slow in coming, but when it finally did, the moments of warmth and light were all the sweeter. Bill and Liam walk to the bus stop, spring's filmy yellow-green shining in the road puddles.

And we dawdle too long, and hear the growl of the bus as it pulls up and idles. Julie the bus driver is unfailingly kind to dawdlers. She knows to wait on these golden green mornings for our little boy to come puffing around the bend.

Because along the way we have been exploring, finding a Carolina chickadee nest  in the driveway box, laden with seven eggs and Hollofil from Chet's toys, just exactly like it was last year. 

It's so good to have the same little neighbors who do the same things year after year.

I am holding out the slim hope that this nest in our meadow belongs to a tufted titmouse. I want to paint baby titmice in the worst way. Must return this week to see who's incubating!

On this morning, we bring our friend John along. John has a cat at home named Gunga Din. I could tell by the way he was holding Chet Baker that he had a cat, without even asking. You don't bunch a Boston terrier up on your shoulder like that! Chet looked a little pained but kissed John anyway. He is that way.

We showed John the proper way to hold a Boston terrier. You let him jump up on your lap and then you give him a half-hour massage, working on the knots in his poor stressed muscles. Of which he has none.

Bill and John walk the driveway, hunting morels

but all we manage to find is chickadee eggs. Another chickadee nest in the backyard, this one still being laid!
And though, being in the yard, she's much closer to the motherlode of Hollofil, she prefers grape bark and rabbit hair and goldenrod fiber.

Individuals all, the birds on our land.  If you're wondering how I got these nest photos, I'm shooting down into our faux birchbark PVC bird boxes. The light comes through the sides, which is one of the things that invasive, nest destroying house sparrows hate about them. House sparrows like deep dark cavities, not nicely lit ones, so these PVC boxes, designed by Steve Gilbertson of Minnesota, are just the ticket where there are house sparrows bedeviling your bluebirds.