Having left the high, dry climate of the Colorado Front Range and returned to the Missouri River Valley of the southern Midwest, we have dramatically moved forward in spring. While the extensive greenery is most noticeable, many other changes mark the greater progress of the season.
The landscapes are painted by many colorful bulb plants, the purplish flowers of redbuds and the white bloom of wild plums. Spring beauties and wild violets join dandelions on the deep green lawns and lilac shrubs have begun to flower. Compared with Colorado, migrant and summer songbirds are abundant in the fields and woodlands; among these are house wrens, chipping sparrows, eastern kingbirds, barn swallows and a host of warblers.
Down at Phillips Lake, in south Columbia, we encountered a trio of double-crested cormorants, a lone spotted sandpiper and a large flock of cliff swallows, repairing their nests beneath the boat dock roof. Tomorrow I'll return to Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, where the advancing tide of spring should be especially evident.
