Eye on nature: Spring triggers a time of transition

On our campus and in our backyards, each day in May brings new additions to our community. Yesterday a Wilson’s Warbler, with his cap of black and staccato song, joined the chorus of finches and towhees.  Today a Black-headed Grosbeak landed on the top of a Douglas fir, 2500 miles from its winter home in the pine forests of Nayarit, Mexico.

These and other newcomers join a spectacle in full swing.  Along the campus trails the canopy closes as ashes and maples reach full splendor.  Their broad leaves hide a tiny kinglet on her nest, protected from predators by height and camouflage. In the brambles below a Song Sparrow disappears into a thorn-guarded home, while lower still, the juncos nest, deep in the grass on the forest edge just as invisible to casual passersby. All around us the anticipation builds. Each day new flowers burst into color and eggs transform into begging birds.  Mothers (and fathers) use every minute of the lengthening days to feed their future and ours.

As this new life grows, we can look to the sky for what tomorrow’s wind brings, perhaps a warbler from the jungles of Nicaragua or a swallow from the mangrove forests of Costa Rica.  We can rejoice in the heartening message of each new arrival–these international travelers who recognize no government’s boundary, but who are affected none the less by our human laws and practices. And we can be thankful that their winter grounds still provide ample food and glad that our long spring days bring an abundance of resources to sustain them here again.

 

Wally Shriner is an MHCC biology instructor and the  Natural Resources Technology program faculty adviser who writes monthly columns that compares the wildlife of MHCC with its visitors.