the bobolinks are back!

A glorious May day today – yesterday was chilly, damp, and drizzly, but today is one of those awesome blue sky, puffy clouds days.

 

Honeysuckle is in bloom, as is some other mysteriously sweet smelling tree I have yet to locate, let alone identify.

And best of all, I heard the absolutely distinct, unforgettable, insane-joy song of the bobolink for the first time today on my run.

I used to hear bobolinks in the meadow in back of my dad’s house, and they were very much a presence at his graveside service two summers ago. And since Dad’s birthday is in June, usually around Father’s Day, and that’s when the service was, and that’s when I typically heard these birds at his house…I’ve just learned to associate this song with him.

If you haven’t heard a bobolink’s song, you simply must listen to these clips here, and here. I’ve read comparisons of their song to the whistles and chirps of R2D2. What do you think? And, see if you can also spot the redwinged blackbirds in the background of the first one, and a mourning dove in the second one.

This is how I spent part of the day – either having the usual marathon phone conversation with Michele, or doing Reiki, out on the deck on the cool chairs Kevin brought back from Kenya years ago.

The cats kept me company, as usual.

 

  I spotted a Jack-in-the-pulpit in our immediate driveway, by the lilac bushes, and saw that the ferns in this spot are j-u-s-t… n-o-w… unfurling the very tips of their leaves.

Apropos of nothing, here’s the nature-girl detritus that has washed up on our front porch…The stick (for what it’s worth) is riddled with cool little worm holes. The round rocks are from the Snake in Jackson Hole. There’s a brain-size chunk of snowflake obsidian in wedged in the back corner behind the driftwood (thanks, Michele!) and we also have Michele to thank for the chunk of rock with “Dave” carved in it. (It says “LOVE” on the other side.)