Not much time for blogging and book writing. Guess what comes first?

So, here, another picture of a bird.

In a free moment at work today, I flipped open Beat Poets and found Kerouac’s advice for writers: “Belief & Technique for Modern Prose.”

Half lunatic love ravings of the self-professed angelic mind (see me vent my inner Jack?) half good advice, half (yeah, 3/2’s) scattered pearls, I found a few ideas I like, especially these:

24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

29. You’re a Genius all the time

And, now, off to the labors of my genius…

Being a squirrel sometimes looks like good work if you can get it.

Today was a perfect first day of spring with deep blue skies and a nice cool breeze. I saw a barn swallow while out today, so the swallows are back as are the hummingbirds who are starting to show up at the feeder again.

Spring at last.

There’s nothing like an old stone wall, crumbling and forgotten, to make a gray day seem even grayer. I’m sure its builder would be as surprised to find it still here as I was to find it at all only a few steps away, though all but hidden from the trail.

These thick leathery plants are suddenly everywhere. A good reminder to sometimes look down.

Like a gate, these sticks block the way to a small clearing, owned by cardinals.

I saw this downy woodpecker banging away on a branch about ten feet above the trail yesterday. Everyone I passed on the trail was talking about the woodpecker. Did you see the woodpecker? Did you see him?

Loud as he was, he wasn’t hard to miss.

I took my survey walk along the trail near the house on Saturday morning. The first thing that hit me when I walked outside was the sheer number of birds that were singing. It’s been a while since it was that loud. It was a beautiful spring day, and the birds knew it.

The pond held a few northern shovelers and a bunch of gadwalls (lousy over-enlarged picture above), a duck I hadn’t previously met in the neighborhood. I counted six of them in the pond with the two shovelers, but all the ducks flew away as one when a family walked up to the edge of the pond to skip rocks.

I got this shot of one of the gadwalls on the way out.

Along the way, I saw the usual suspects: mourning dove, carolina chickadee, northern mockingbird, American crow, killdeer, and lots of noisy blue jays.

The blue jays were a nice surprise. They’ve been lying low these past months, but with such a perfect spring day, they were out in substantial numbers. I heard far more than I saw, but I saw quite a few. They are also back in the yard for the first time since August.

The white-winged doves are back as well. Most of them left in November, leaving only a few stragglers behind. Saturday morning, I saw one of those clean-out-the-feeder-in-ten-minutes flocks that hasn’t been around in months.

So it’s spring, although a front came through today to give us one last bite of cold, and I’m curious to see when the ducks will leave for good and when the scissor-tails and swallows will return. I bet the swallows are here by next weekend.

One other thing I noticed on Saturday afternoon. I took the dogs out and the trees were erupting with chatters, screeches, cooing, twirls, and any other sound a backyard bird can make. The jays especially were having a fit. Then, silence as a hawk flew over. As soon as the raptor was gone, the singing resumed, but in a much less agitated manner. Nice of them to warn us.