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4-1-2010
I have woken up to the sound of bird song the past two mornings. Our winter residents are tuning up and our summer residents are beginning to arrive. Yesterday I heard two song sparrows duking it out in melody. This morning I heard chickadees, the song sparrow again, and a cardinal, and another bird that I think might have been an oriole. The turkey vultures are back, too.
A local chipmunk was scurrying around the garage yesterday. That is the first I have seen a chipmunk this spring. Today while I ate lunch I watched the first groundhog nosing around the back yard. He wasn’t eating the green shoots that are just starting to come up in the lawn; he was just walking around looking at things. He was a brown groundhog, unlike the blonde race we usually see in our yard, so I am not sure where he spent the winter. But he seemed to think that the shed out back might make good summer lodgings, and was giving it a careful look-see.
The snow on the mountains is almost a memory now. Only a few dirty white patches remain. We had three days of rain this week, so the Swift River is up about as high as we ever see it. The Androscoggin River is high too, drowning the trees at the edge of the banks. I have not gone to see it yet, but I imagine that the Rumford falls are really roaring now. This time of year it sends up great plumes of mist and really looks like it lives up to its reputation of being the highest falls east of Niagara.
