Announcing the Arrival of Spring!

 No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.  

Hal Borland

The first week of March was bitterly cold in Ontario with north winds causing wind chills that kept many people indoors. We are experiencing spring-like temperatures this week and during my bike ride after work today, I was happy to find some real signs that spring is underway. Three days ago I first heard, then saw Red-winged Blackbirds in the park near our home. They are usually the first spring migrants that I notice early in March. The males arrive a few weeks ahead of the females and start their noisy territorial displays. 

Male Northern Cardinals, who have remained here all winter, are also choosing their nesting territories and sing loudly on the treetops. 

Arriving around the same time as Red-winged Blackbirds are the Common Grackles. Grackles are swaggering, boisterous blackbirds but they look more attractive in their iridescent mating plumage. 

Birders in our area are reporting first sightings of Tundra Swans arriving on their journey north to the Arctic tundra where they will raise their young. They do a layover not far from our home and arrive in large numbers by the end of the month.

But I really count spring by the arrival of American Robins to our neighbourhood, and this afternoon I spotted six of them.

There is still a lot of snow on the ground and I always wonder how these fruit, grub and worm eating birds survive while the earth is still frozen. They will congregate on sunny slopes where the ground is softer and forage withered, winter frozen berries from a variety of shrubs and trees. Nest building will not start for another month or more but they will be our most prevalent migrating bird in the suburbs.

No matter the uncertainty of our lives, nature continues in predictable seasonal cycles which are very reassuring to me. 

"As long as the world exists, 

there will be a time for planting and a time for harvest. 

There will always be cold and heat, 

summer and winter, day and night."  

Genesis 8:22