SPRING !!

The Meadowlarks are singing, Bald Eagles are nesting, and ice is melted off the ponds. Sun is warm in the yard where little green shoots are coming up thru the earth. So far we have identified daffodils, tulips, crocus, day-lillies, and rhubarb as little sprouts.
....Nearly a week ago I returned to Nebraska to witness migration on a large scale. Many hundreds of Sandhill Cranes taking off from cornfields, equal numbers of Snow Geese on the wing in huge flocks, and a few White-fronted Geese mixed in. I talked to a man at the little Nature Center in Wood River about Prairie-Chickens. He was the right person to ask, and directed to me an unlikely place north-west of Grand Island.
The weekend was incredibly windy, gusts 40 - 50 mph blew fiercely across the open landscape. Red-tail Hawks and Geese had difficulty flying. Cranes spent most of their time feeding in the harvested cornfields.
Monday morning the air temperature was 27 F, with the wind-chill much lower. I drove to the described location and looked around. Sure enough brown shapes were moving on a distant hillside. I set the 'scope up on the roof of my truck and had reasonable views of male Greater Prairie-Chickens displaying for a few brown speckled females. Very exciting.
My little camera doesn't photograph at that distance, so these are closer subjects, South Platte River, and Sandhill Cranes in a field.
.....Yesterday Nina and I drove into the mountains. The feeders where I saw Grosbeaks and Finches 3 weeks ago, are nearly free of snow. Spring melting is coming to the mountains as well.