We really are on hummingbird watch now. Our favourite visitors normally come back to the Park in the second or third week of March, often around Saint Patrick's Day. Along with the hummingbirds, the first salmonberry flowers appear, but with the cold weather we've had this winter, although there is leafbud already, I feel the blossoms may be a little late.

We will be putting out sugar solution in our hummingbird feeders behind the Nature House from 1st March onwards.

But I'm not looking forward to another of my personal favourite bird visitors leaving, the juncos will be going back up to the mountains as soon as the weather starts to warm up.  But right now, after another acrtic blast, they are happily puffed up and flitting around our bird feeders. 

I've cheated with the title, except that until the trees green up, we can still see last year's nests.

The crows, in reality, do not yet appear to be nesting. We see them at twilight, gathering in the northwest corner of the Nature Park by Alderbridge and Shell Road. During the Winter and Fall, they roost at night, there is safety in numbers for them. Crows are social birds - when the nesting season starts, the roosting will end, but even so, their nests are not spaced too far apart, and they appear to continue communication, looking out for each other like good neighbours.

Yesterday, the sky looked threatening to the east, but to the west, and in patches, it was blue. The blue part looked exactly the type of clear azure where you can often see eagles soaring. And there they were, three of them, two adults and a juvenile, riding the storm front, circling and gliding. 

Below, in the pond, two frogs had surfaced. I looked for a while, amazed that they might appear so early, before realising that they were quite dead. Kris brought binoculars and we were able to see that one had no eyes. The ice on this part of the pond had melted and must have allowed these two unfortunates, trapped perhaps beneath the surface, to rise up and float lopsidedly. 

The Nature Park is thawing out, almost all of the snow and meltwater has disappeared, and the City crew have chopped down several trees that had been permanently bowed (perhaps it should be 'boughed' ! ) by the snow. We have seen an immediate increase in the activity of small mammals, which probably had quite some difficulty finding food during the very cold weather.

The edges of the pond, for so long covered in thick ice, have also started to thaw, although it will be a while before we see any activity from the inhabitants, overwintering in the mud at the bottom or in the slightly less cold water just above the mud.