Backyard holds plenty of sights

Spring is such a joyful, welcome season for everyone, especially people who live where there are four seasons. As wonderful as winter can be with the first two or three snows, after several weeks of cold we start thinking of spring.

Marjolein Bastin, an illustrator, artist and writer born in Holland who creates nature pictures for Hallmark cards. She lives in Missouri half of the year and says, "The buckeye that just yesterday was a nondescript wad of tightly folded leaves fans out like an umbrella today, proclaiming its identity." And that quote could describe many of the trees in my yard. The cottonwoods and aspens are turning that wonderful bright green of leaves that just sprouted. Artists call that color "leaf green."

The grass that has been green for several weeks is sprouting dandelion blossoms next to the purple hyacinths, and perhaps that is the only time that dandelions look truly beautiful to me. Fruit trees seem to bloom overnight. The days get longer. The migrating birds begin to stop for their overnight stay and sometimes cheer us with a longer visit. Once spring starts, it seems to take on a speed that has to be viewed every day to absorb every beautiful scenic change as it roars into summer. Birds begin to warm up their pipes, and every morning brings the dawn chorus along with an evening vesper trill. The greening plants attract the insects, which in turn attract the birds. The birds relish the tender new leaves and fruit tree blossoms.

Each morning, I try to circle the yard and sit in my folding chairs that are spaced for the optimal view of the avian show. While I drink tea and eat breakfast, the birds on some mornings come in from all sides. Other days it's just the regulars, including grackles and a swarm of Eurasian-collared doves.

Mourning doves coexist with the E doves in spite of being smaller. A mourning dove's nest is a wonderment of construction. It looks as though they just got tired of building and quit after putting in the foundation. It is a feat of balance how the brooding bird manages to cling to the nest that is so spare that sky light can be seen from below. Somehow the eggs manage to stay in the nest, and then the young hatch and are just as agile as the parents.

The black-headed grosbeak male stopped for a few days and ate the bird seed from the deck floor. His rich orange and black colors dotted with white specks and thick parrotlike beak make him a "hunk" of the bird world.

The morning that I heard the two- to six-note phrases sounding like the bird was asking questions and then answering them, I started looking for the Plumbeus Vireo. Five-and-one-half-inches long, white lines that look like spectacles around the eyes, two white wing bars and yellowish under feathers and the rest of him grey. What a handsome bird.

The prize for the week was the black-throated gray warbler. I found it accidentally on one of my rounds through the yard. It is mostly black and white, with white under parts and a dark throat and head with a white eye stripe. A small yellow spot between the eye and beak highlights its beauty.

The male Bullock's oriole brought a female into the yard today and noisily tried to persuade her with whistles and other irregular sounds to consider a tree for building their home, a grey socklike affair that swings from a tree branch. I put out the vacancy sign.

It's time for all nature lovers to pause and watch the march of spring past our windows.

Norma Erickson is a longtime bird watcher who lives in Greeley with her family.