I caught the flu last week which really put a crimp in my garden planning. May is the craziest month of the year for me. The several thousand flowers I started from seed in the basement over winter need to be brought up and slowly introduced to the sun and wind until they are ready to be planted in the ground later in the month. Every morning I schlep them out into the yard and every evening I haul them back onto our screen porch because I don’t trust marauding rabbits and coyotes not to eat them or stomp on them. In between, I spend a lot of time watering.
I become obsessed with weather forecasts and usually wake up WAY before my alarm each morning in a panic that the forecast was wrong and frost has snuck up on me when I wasn’t standing guard. Or that the thunderstorms that will arrive in the afternoon are now expected to contain hail. I don’t get a lot of sleep in May.
Then of course there’s the temptation of the garden centers with all their new, shiny plants. And the lilacs and crabapples exploding in blooms for just a short time, begging me to take their picture.
But what really excites me during this time are the beautiful migrating birds that visit my backyard on their way up north for the summer. I easily take thousands of photographs over a two-week period. May is an exhausting yet exhilarating month for me, and I have NO TIME TO BE SICK.
Even with my plugged up ears I could hear grosbeaks singing from the tops of the oaks over the last few days. Their song is very similar to the robin’s, but it’s sweeter-sounding and more musical. They perform it so delicately that it almost sounds as if it’s coming from somewhere in the distance, when in fact the bird could be singing from a tree right above your head.
Robins, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Scarlet Tanagers sound a lot alike. I grew up with robins everywhere so my brain has a tendency to tune out their song. Each spring I have to remind myself that I could be hearing a grosbeak or tanager. Thankfully grosbeaks have a very distinctive squeak call that sets them apart from the other two.
Grosbeaks aren’t the only migrating birds in the neighborhood right now. While I was photographing this one, a little friend suddenly popped up in the frame:
