21 March, 2021 Riot on Westbury Drive

I have all the usual miscellany this week. But I was walking Mackey and Turner out to the car this morning to go to the river and I turned around and saw the results of Evelyn’s camellia pruning. I took this picture at 9:20 this morning. This is a camellia riot. If this plant was a person, he or she would be grinning from ear to ear: 

Spring began here in Richmond yesterday at 5:37 AM. I was messing around in the yard yesterday and took a picture of an individual bloom from that plant at 2:55 PM: 

I went down to the river for a few minutes Monday afternoon. Buffleheads are still around. They’ll be headed north soon: 

I’ve learned over the past couple of weeks that Barred Owls and Buffleheads are on roughly the same schedule. Buffleheads appear in late October or early November, roughly at the first frost. I learned that many years ago. And I looked back over my blogs and my pictures and that’s when Barred Owls first show up. They’re around until roughly the end of March or the beginning of April – the last frost. I read this about Barred Owls under “Cool facts” on the Cornell Lab all about birds page: “Barred Owls don’t migrate, and they don’t even move around very much. Of 158 birds that were banded and then found later, none had moved farther than 6 miles away.” So they’re around. But they must change behavior. Anyway, one was down there this morning, hooting to its mate who sounded like it was ~¼ mile upstream: 

Since I started out with “flowers bailing me out” (those camellias though!), I will continue in that vein, since yesterday was the first day of Spring, 2021. I photographed this hyacinth on the edge of our driveway yesterday afternoon around 4:30: 

Maybe I’ve put a photograph on here before – perhaps as recently as last week – but I’m enjoying the Pine Warblers (Setophaga pinus) that have been showing up on my feeders. Cute little birds that in the past I have probably mistaken for goldfinches: 

I got to spend some time with my old friend Luna this weekend. We did a few walks around her neighborhood, but of course the highlight was Pony Pasture this morning. Definitely the highlight for me, and I sense it was the highlight for Luna too. A kind person named Jackie took our picture. 

What’s not to love? Thank you Jackie! 

Have a great  first week of Spring, 

Jay