After a sluggish start, it's beginning to look and feel more like May. The canopy is closing in, lilacs and honeysuckle are in bloom and the lawn mowers are getting a workout. Down at the local wetland, cricket frogs are calling, a few green frogs have appeared and green-backed herons have joined their great blue cousins; indigo buntings, eastern kingbirds and common yellowthroats have also settled in for the summer.
Back in the neighborhood, the black walnuts are heavy with staminate catkins, house wrens are singing and a host of birds (robins, mourning doves, cardinals, blue jays) are already raising their first broods of the year. While migrant warblers have been spotty this year, Swainson's thrushes, rose-breasted grosbeaks and white-crowned sparrows have stopped to feed in the yard over the past few days; ruby-throated hummingbirds (already late) and common nighthawks should make an appearance this week. Down the street, the season's first tent caterpillars (the offspring of a moth) have established webs in our neighbor's crab apple trees.
As another Pacific front promises thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow, it appears that winter has finally thrown in the towel. Balmy nights are ahead, bringing an explosion of insects and a feast for the toads; they should be trilling any day now.
