A Sunny Walk on Mother's Day

Please know that I am a poor photographer who relies completely upon your machine's ability to enlarge these distant images of our birds. On this Mother's Day, I once again put off grading the final essays and exams in order to enjoy the lovely fair weather and find out what was going on in the marsh and on the slope. Yesterday the year's first Yellow Warblers arrived and I once again re-learned their song. Today the year's first Kingbirds arrived, and I relearned their busy chatter, which--for busy-ness-- competes well with that of the Tree Swallows. My two-hour binocular walk brought me into the presence, one way or another, of thirty species of bird. And everywhere the air is literally alive with their calls, chatter, and songs. The bluebirds, house wrens, and phoebes near the house give way to the catbirds, towhees, and thrashers farther downslope. Then the sapsuckers, kingbirds, and flickers in the Sapsucker Aspens give way to the Yellowthroats, Redwings, and Swamp Sparrows in the marsh.

In the photos above, I am most pleased with the two of the Swamp Sparrow. Shes the one with the bit of grass in her mouth on her way to the nest she's weaving. In the first photo she's still fluffing out her feathers after sex with her mate, which I observed but did not capture. She took it in stride, one might say, multi-tasking. But the Swamp Sparrows are quiet down in the marsh, and they resemble the Song Sparrows except for the breast, so it was only last year that I identified them properly. Now I know where to look every year, and they do not disappoint. The pretty little Field Sparrow with the pink beak is a prominent voice here lately.

On this Mother's Day also, Alison purchased and sprayed biocides; moved rocks; loaded, hauled, and spread mulch; cussed the new grass in the front flower beds; made her now-annual reduction in the size of those beds; received greetings and love from all three daughters; and began to stack the five cords of firewood delivered last week; and called her husband from his chores to have lunch and drink a beer on the porch.

My own mother, to whom half of the Big Green Book was dedicated, flourishes in Simpsonville with her sixty-years husband and shares something fine from the grill with my brother and his wife.

For the first time this year, the ring in the tub is formed of actual dirt. Now the newly cleansed couple will make their glowing way over to the Remus Tavern for whatever is special.