Bird activity

It’s February 18, the sun is stronger every day, the snow is trying as hard as it can to melt. Before last night’s snow, the temperature was ABOVE FREEZING yesterday for a few hours and is back up there right now. Most recent years, there have been many signs of birds’ springtime activities by this time. I see lots of birds daily in my backyard–cardinals, chickadees, juncos, jays—and certainly there are still lots of seeds on the plants that are sticking up above the snow, but I haven’t observed what I think of as spring mating activity—until yesterday. As we were walking along Harristown Road in Glen Rock, I heard a persistent chickadee mating call–the lovely “fee-bee” two-note call, a descending minor third.
It’s sad to think that in a more normal year the crocuses would be in bloom already and the daffodils would be up. But spring will come. The birds know that.