It's the last day on our Littleton, Colorado, farm before returning to Missouri, where my real job awaits. Despite some rainy weather (always welcome out here), it's been a good week, with a mix of chores and recreation. Summer-like conditions returned today, with a high near eighty, but the greenery and color should last for another month or so.
The wet, mild spring produced a spectacular lilac bloom this year and the chokecherry blossoms are more extensive than I've seen in years, a good omen for the birds and squirrels that feed on their fruit. The mulberries are just beginning to form and, until they're ripe, there's plenty of juniper berries for the robins, catbirds and waxwings. Western tanagers stopped by this week, an annual visit on their way to the mountains; other migrants have included yellow-rumped warblers, white-crowned sparrows and ruby-crowned kinglets. Two of our summer residents, northern orioles and broad-tailed hummingbirds, also returned this week.
Unfortunately, we seemed to have lost our resident pair of red fox; I've seen neither the red female nor her melanistic partner this visit and we usually have pups roaming the farm by now. Recent work on our pasture fence may have scared them off or, perhaps, one of the adults has been killed. We, of course, have an open door policy for all wildlife and, if we're lucky, the fox will return for our visit in June.
