Woke up to about 2 inches of snow on the ground this morning. Welcome to springtime on the front range.
Here we seem pretty well assured that Spring has finally landed. Only the barn swallows are missing, and they should be turning up in a week or so. A honeysuckle shrub that's practically a thicket unto itself has been reclaimed even a bit earlier than usual by a pair of gray catbirds. They're fussy about late cold weather so I figure we're past it.
Yesterday I was treated to a few distinct "meow!" calls plus some riffs of typical catbird gibberish, alternating with fairly good mimicry of house finches and robins as I walked out to post a letter in midmorning. This particular male catbird has to be the same one from last year, when he had learned by midsummer how to mimic the noon whistle from the firehall down in the village. I heard him softly practicing that acquisition later on yesterday afternoon. I'll be happy if he doesn't crank it up at 5am some morning.
Catbirds are so comical and really fun to have around all season. They haven't quite the talent of mockingbirds but they are pretty good mimics. Once a few years back there was one that would mimic exactly the sound of my driver's side car door squeaking when I opened it fully. The females only seem to sing back quiet little riffs after her mate struts longer pieces of his repertoire. They both get really quiet when there are eggs being minded unless an intruder actually gets near the nest... then there's all hell to pay with both parents defending.
Anyway they seem pretty reliable predictors of the fading away of threats of snow, unlike robins, who show up early and do sometimes get surprised. Last year we had an April 30 snowdump and the catbirds were nowhere to be found until almost June. The robins had been here for weeks and so were out there on the first of May hopping around and kicking up leaf litter under trees out back after the lawns had all turned white again and made bug-hunting futile.
Those geese probably made a U turn last night.
