Hey tweets, I just finished watching my favorite scene in Disney's
Fantasia 2000 (well, my second-favorite; my all-time favorite is the
flamingo with yoyo): the scene where Spring, overcome by the volcano, is
bent over with grief, covered with ash. When her friend the elk finds her,
she can barely look up, let alone bring spring back. Finally, with an
almost audible and very unelf-like oomph, the same kind I give nowadays
whenever I get up out of a chair, she grasps the empowering elk's antlers
and is lifted onto the elk's back. To no avail. All her belief in her
power to resurrect life after winter is gone.

I know how she feels, don't you? This past winter was longer, gloomier,
and colder than any in my memory. Unlike the Spring sprite, my spirit
wasn't tried in the fires of a volcano, but drowned in the relentless
rain. I'm a Seattle girl, but after 30 days of drip drip drip, even I
began to think about moving to Mars.

And then this morning, just as the sprite found her courage again, I did
too. I went to the Fill, where the very essence of spring lives today.
Apple blossoms drifted through the perfumed air. A COMMON YELLOWTHROAT at
the dime parking lot pond threw up his head, opened his throat, and poured
forth a river of music. At the Wedding Rock, the ANNA'S HUMMINGBIRD who
has been on guard duty all winter, through rain, sleet, and cold, is busy
driving away a presumptuous youngster who challenges him from the safety
of a bush. The challenger pokes his bill out just long enough to agitate
his elder, who lets out a mighty cheep and elevates himself 30 feet high,
only to divebomb his rival. In the grove of cottonwoods to the south, a
BROWN CREEPER, in spanking white and vivid browns, hitches his way up a
tree. Two DOWNIES have found a hollow tree and are pounding away as loudly
as they can. Where is the female? I don't know, and maybe they don't care
anymore. Gotta beat out the other bird.

On the main pond, the shorebirds have shown up at last. Although I know
the birds will come back - though maybe not in historic numbers - until I
actually see them arrive, I'm never quite confident they really will
return again. When they do, I am overjoyed. Today there were four DUNLINs
stitching the grassy hassocks on the south side of the pond, in company
with two LEASTS and something that had the size and shape of a western but
certainly not the coloring. Even the dunlins were just barely coming into
breeding plumage - their bellies were mostly black, but their upperparts
were still pretty dull-looking. On Shoveler Pond, and again at Cinnamon
Teal Pond (the pond nearest the point), were WILSON'S SNIPE right out in
the open. Above the ponds, BARN SWALLOWS, TREES, VIOLET-GREENS, CLIFFS,
and three (!) NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOWS chased bugs. Then two VAUX's
SWIFTS arrived, popping out of the wormhole as they do this time of year.
Nothing in the sky, then pop! there they are, filling space that was empty
just a nanosecond before.

This time of year, you can almost feel the earth tilting on its axis: the
buffleheads are clearing out; can the blue-winged teals be far behind? -
Connie