Crow’s Nest: The color of spring

 By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager

The rain today saturated the colors in the woods. We won’t see a color green this shade again until this time next year.

A neighbor’s tractor near the preserve looks good in any season.

We’ve seen the whole spectrum of bird colors this week. From the kitchen window we had an extended view of a pileated woodpecker—not an unusual sighting for us but an unusually good view. Later that day I saw an indigo bunting in our yard. Then I saw a scarlet tanager on the edge of the woods along Piersol Road, followed shortly thereafter by a Baltimore oriole in a hedgerow.

Tonight we saw fireflies in the canopy of the trees around the house—surely not the same species we associate with midsummer but a happy sign of what’s coming.