Signs of Spring

The mango tree has blossomed, is still blossoming, produced so many blossoms we caught birds nibbling on them and yet the tree is still full of little mango fruits.

The jasmine is blossoming and the warm night air, clear and calm and full of bright, sharp, glittering stars smells like a Persian garden.

The green parrots are back, as are the ibis, the hawks and the vultures. And the blacksnake. And the toads which have been clinging to the glass doors of the lanai and driving the cats crazy with frustration.

All of the doors and windows have been open for over a month now, at least the ones with screens to keep the bugs out and the cats in. Somehow, the occasional lizard still manages to find its way in, though.

The bulldozer arrived bright and early and spent three hours scraping the topsoil off half the open field across the road in preparation for someone building a house there.

There's been an active For Sale sign on that field for a few months now. I can't tell if someone bought the whole field and intends to build on half of it or if only half of it sold. I'm sure it's zoned for two lots. In either case, a house on that site will severely cramp available parking for next Hallowe'en. But that's still several seasons (Spring, High, Summer, Rainy and Fall, at least) away for now.

Things That Delighted Me This Weekend

Seven or eight teensy little ants (two of them could easily fit on a sesame seed) found a rather large dead spider (comparatively speaking. The body was maybe a half inch across) and dragged the corpse by the legs up an outside wall. Six ants each grabbed the very tip of a leg and pulled while the others pushed on the thorax. It was slow going and a constant stream of fellow ants flowed in both directions up and down the wall just off to their side but they persisted.

A pair of electric Day-Glo pistachio green parrots attacked the bougainvillea by the front door and with no concern for either the cats or me less than twelve feet away worked with their beaks, sometimes upside down, to twist and break off the topmost dead branchlets for nest construction material.

I caught a faint scent of night-blooming jasmine last evening when I went out to feed Bartleby who has moved outdoors, where she cannot be bothered by kittens, while the weather is nice. I can think of nothing more exotic and civilized at the same time than a warm dark evening under stars and moonlight in a garden of jasmine.

It rained. I've been working on the front walkway, cleaning out growth between stones, edging, pulling weeds and turning soil and it rained briefly but heavily yesterday afternoon, a foretaste of Rainy Season which officially starts in a week or so. When it stopped, the living smell of freshly turned wet earth rose up and made the whole exercise worthwhile.

The first mango dropped from the tree. It was warm and sweet and a harbinger for summer. There are more than a hundred ripening on it right now.

It was a good weekend.

Visits, Here and There

The niece and her mom stopped by on Saturday. We intended to go mini-golfing but her mom begged off saying she had errands to run and computer stuff to do, my brother warned that he had limited time before having to go off to work, and Caitlin wanted everyone to be there so we put the expedition off until they return to town from their detour to Georgia to spend Christmas with aunts and uncles from the other side of the family. (Mom ended up hanging around and visiting all afternoon anyway. We probably could've managed two rounds.) And, maybe by then it will be a bit warmer, too.

As a result, my trip to St. Petersburg to see vacationing friends from Salt Lake was put off until Sunday. I managed to find them with only one slight detour which brought me to the tip of such a delightful barrier island that I took them on the same detour later. We ate at a diner that (unbeknownst to us beforehand) was having their regular half-off-your-bill-if-you-wear-your-pajamas-to-brunch Sunday. You could tell the regulars from the visitors by who was (over)dressed for the occasion (although most of them were wearing something under their pj's to keep warm on the trip to the restaurant).

After croissants, omelettes and French toast we ended up in downtown St. Pete along gallery row where we examined blown glass made by Chihuly and his disciples, a number of offbeat restaurants, more glass and furnishings galleries, and a couple of really funky boutiques. The sun came out and the day warmed up nicely. I found a handmade present for my sister-in-law at a tiny Moroccan place.

We were saying goodbye as I prepared to return home when we were interrupted by a raucous chorus of a half dozen green parrots on the wires directly overhead. another flock of a dozen or more circled a few yards behind them. It was a perfect send-off.

Green Parrots Return and the Crow Family Picnic

Yay! The green parrots are back!

I was reading yesterday (Paul Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal, a little outdated (2005) but, for some reason, in our library's new book section) when I caught, out of the corner of my eye, a flash of bright green by the birdbath and my brother yelled "Guess who's back?" from the other room. A pair of green parrots, that's who. They perched on the edge of the birdbath and nuzzled each other, bobbing their heads, and taking sips of water. One or the other, sometimes both, would fly off for a bit and then return. They were perfectly willing to chase the crows away from the bath. Their calls were so loud we could hear them with the windows closed. Eventually, they flew off but their nest is somewhere nearby.

This morning, with no parrots around to interfere, a crow family came by to visit the birdbath. Mom and Dad and three juveniles. The adults were black, sleek and glossy with piercing yellow eyes. The kids, slightly smaller but all fully fledged, were a dark gray. The parents showed how to use the birdbath for both drinking and bathing. The kids caught on quickly and two of them went in at the same time, splashing each other (crows do love to splash) and mock fighting until I thought all the water would be gone. Meanwhile, the adults were off in the lawn finding munchable bugs which they brought back, showed the kids how to wash, and then fed to the youngsters.

Suddenly, one of them discovered the mockingbird's nest (which must have been abandoned because no mockingbird came out to defend it) and they all swarmed it, poking around, approaching it from different angles and actually sitting in it. It seemed to fascinate them.

A fun day out for the whole family.

(Bartleby lay watching the whole thing from four feet away until she got bored and turned to face the other way.)

They're Baaack!, or, The Return of The Birds

Hah! Two movie refs in one title!

During the height of the Hot/Rainy Season most of the birds seemed to disappear. I haven't mentioned vultures or raptor tornadoes because they simply weren't there. No parrots, no mockingbirds. For a while (after a week of torrential downpours that raised the water table to about a foot below surface level) even the owls were nowhere to be found. Now the humidity has dropped, the temperature has dropped and the birds are back!

Including really ugly Muscovy ducks and . . .

. . .some sort of black duck, possibly female Gadwalls or maybe young Mallards and

the local neighborhood Red Shouldered Hawk . . .

. . .which I last saw sitting in a concrete faux-fountain birdbath on somebody's front lawn.

Best of all the owls are back (if they ever really left). Three different sites along my morning walking route have at last four different owls in them (total).

So all is right with (this little corner of) the world!

A Word to the Wise

I've noticed recently that most of the birds that were hanging around the neighborhood seem to be gone. The mottled ducks are still up at the north end of the road by the canal and most of the burrowing owls are still there, but no ibis, vultures or parrots and hardly any doves, crows, mockingbirds, etc. I presume nesting season is over and most of them are just off somewhere but it is weird to walk around at dawn in silence.

The neighborhood falcon is still here, though. This morning he was sitting on the telephone line in a front yard at the end of my street. We stared at each other as I walked directly beneath him. As I went by a squirrel came down the driveway toward me, obviously oblivious to the raptor over his head. He was coming from behind the hawk so the bird didn't see him either. I stopped, pointed and yelled at the squirrel, "You idiot! Look up!!" He froze. I continued on a little way, then turned around. The squirrel was gone.

The falcon saw me coming back and swooped off the wire, diving down to my height before gliding up to the top of the nearest telephone pole. As soon as he did, the squirrel popped out from under some ground cover planted along the driveway and took off.

The falcon is not that big and the squirrel was probably more than he wanted to deal with, but still, it's nice to know the rodent paid attention to my warning.

Green Parrots

Green parrots!!!

I looked out my window this morning and there were three green parrots in the not-jacaranda assiduously breaking off dead twigs (some rather large) with their beaks and then flying off to wherever their construction project is set up. They hopped up and down on the branches side-stepping in parrot fashion examining various bare limbs before grabbing a satisfactory one with their beaks and twisting back and forth until it broke off. They are very particular about only taking fresh-cut twigs. One bird cut a branch and dropped it before he could maneuver it into a balanced position for flight. He looked at it on the ground directly below and then went to cut another. I am told they are part of a resident flock living nearby but this is the first I have seen them.

I know it was the not-jacaranda the parrots were in because it was identified to me as such by the same people who originally told me it was a jacaranda and they should know. I will take their word for it. When it comes to plants I am at the mercy of experts. But I know a green parrot when I see one (or three)!

Update: Upon interrogation, the not-jacaranda admits to being a bougainvillea. For now.