Onrushing Spring

 

Chickadee with Poison Ivy berry

After managing to survive the bare and frosty months of winter this Chickadee has turned to the dried fruit of a Poison Ivy vine for early spring sustenance. 

Warming light on a shingle

A precocious fly finds hospitality on the sunny side of the dilapidated barn in the first week of March.

Harlequin Duck shenanigans

The change of seasons is under way. Down on the shoreline Harlequin Ducks charge at each other to establish their social ordering for the northern breeding grounds.

Double-crested Cormorant

An ordinarily smooth-headed Double-crested Cormorant displays feathered tufts on its crown to answer the curiosity of birding novices and of potential breeding partners.

Grape leaves unfurling

Carefully resilient plant buds unfurl a new cycle of growth onto the realm.

Northern Blue Violet blossoming

These extravagances excite the natural world into progressions of renewal at the core of our notions of beauty.

Sassafras tree blooming

That beauty affirms the diverse forms and qualities of life sustaining itself. 

A House Finch amid Red Oak blossoms

It comes like a torrent to fill the welcoming, partnering landscape.

Wilson's Warbler

Spring is a pell-mell rush to get positioned for procreation in the incandescence of summer.

Brown Thrasher singing

Among songbirds it is a time of voicing anthems, boundaries, and complaints.

Blueberry bushes, shad tree, granite

A quick, tumultuous renaissance plays out over the land. Beneath it all, the quarry fragments wait out biology's splendid surge.