Spring Madness

It's spring here in central Maine. I can tell by counting my black fly bites. That, and the birds are back. My happy little kingdom rings with birdsong pretty much all day. The bobolinks kick it off at first light, followed by savannah and song sparrows, and two warblers nesting like bookends at either end of the yard--a chestnut sided and a common yellowthroat. The sound of birds drifts from the woods beyond the cornfield to reach my driveway when I walk out with my coffee to greet the new day, a giant yet faint woodwind symphony. I have been out ogling these little buggers like mad--we have at least eight species of warbler on my road, plus my favorite fly catcher-- the great crested-- which among other things says, "weep, weep."

Then there are the screeching birds: the killdeer. They nest in the cornfield but raise the babies in our yard now--mostly. They play chicken with the traffic and dart back to the cornfield several times a day. My heart is in my throat as I watch them. I think the screeching birds lost one of their babies overnight. There were two, but we've seen only one all day. There's no evidence of roadkill so I have to assume something else got it. There are many, many predators here, something the screeching birds alerted us to last summer when they first moved in. All night long their alarms went off--loud enough to wake us up. We had to look out the window to see what imminent attack was coming. We didn't get much sleep.

My best new bird this year is alder flycatcher, seen from a canoe.

We have other bird problems too. In late June the farmer will hay the fields, which sadly belong to him and not us. Bye bye bobolink babies. All of you with hayfields out there, don't hitch up the mower til late July, OK? That way meadowlarks and bobolinks have a better chance of fledgling, living to return next spring, and ultimately escape extinction. Meadowlark populations are down 72 percent in the last 40 years, according to an Audubon study.

Like teachers everywhere, I'm hanging on by my fingernails for the end of school. Next year I'll be the elementary gifted and talented teacher in our district. I'm alternately thrilled and terrified. No more easy 6 mile commute. Now I'll run to all the elementary schools in the district. Excellent timing with $4/gallon gas prices (or whatever the immorally greedy oil companies get away with by then). On the other hand, no more classroom management, to which I say Hallelujah.

And to spring, I say hallelujah too. It was a long winter, a cruel April, and now I'm holding all of us together with duct tape.