Can Spring be near ?

[northerner2]

On this cold but bright and sunny morning, I heard (and saw) one of the local Cardinals singing from his perch at the top of a tree. Something not heard since last year.
Can this mean that Spring is not so far away  :?:
 :roll:

Here's hoping...

[moratorian]

Sorry to disappoint but some Cardinals stay the winter.

Mike

[Craig McL]

A yes but I hear ( haven’t seen one yet though) that the Red Wing Black birds are starting to show back up !!

A sheer sine  of spring .. :lol:

Craig

[northerner2]

Sorry to disappoint but some Cardinals stay the winter.

I realize that the Cardinals are here all year - I feed them every day and they put me in the poor-house with their seed requirements !!!, but my point was, clearly not well expressed, that they do not sing during the winter.  Normally.
He was calling for a mate - which is usually associated with the Springtime ?

[Lloyd]

Once again, several House Sparrows are loudly fighting for nesting space around my window-mounted air conditioner. This is a sure sign of Spring as it's been happening every year around this time. I also love to hear young Cardinals practice their first ever courtship calls. A little rusty now, but they'll get better as Spring approaches.

[Howieh]

Very interesting point about winter singing; I was in Edward Gardens today and there were plenty of cardinals around (at least 4 males and one female) but they WERE very quiet. There's a pair that hangs around my back yard and last week was the first time this winter that I heard the male sing (calling his mate?).

[Napper]

During last weekends GBBC there were 2 Cardinals singing.. and One Robin singing

across the road from my house here in suburban Milton....  

I spotted 4 Robins in Niagara falls Saturday

My Mom emailed me to say she spotted 8 robins

in the tree across from her house in Port Colborne  on Saturday... she was surprised..

I spotted House sparrows building nests in Niagara falls  today..  

Spring is near...  )

[Halton Hills]

my point was, clearly not well expressed, that they do not sing during the winter

I understood exactly what you said....... :wink:

My overwintering resident cardinal has started to sing as well

.

[BC]

The Rock Pigeons of downtown Toronto seem confident that spring is on the way if their frisky behaviour is any indication.

[Lee]

I saw 7 male Blue Jays yapping away and dive bombing each other today in the Kingston/McCowan area.  I heard them before I saw them and then couldn't believe how many there were!

[norman]

I remember hearing the cheerful music (a little anthropomorphism there, but I'm getting desperate) cardinals singing full force during sunny days from late January, at least, and onward, and that was when I was less than 100 years old! Very early one morning about ten years ago I was making my way up a slippery hill in the East End -- there had been an ice storm the night before -- and one of these former Southerners was just blasting out his syrinx in the dark ...



A more recent addition to the late winter chorus is the House Finch -- sunny days, raging hormones and energy to burn, I suppose. Aunt Margaret is belting out some of her favourite oldies in the shower this a.m. She seems to be stuck on 1970's/1980's avant-garde-new-wave-whatever-else-you-want-to-call-it; in any case, it's interesting -- and, obviously, quite disturbing, when I think about what the already nervous neighbours are thinking, to be hearing old chestnuts from the likes of Pere Ubu, Wall of Voodoo, Talking Heads, and, as I type, Devo's "Whip It" in the 8000 Hz range -- to hear the effects of 11-hour-plus daylengths on creatures large and small.



In a couple of months, we can forget about this rather extended White Christmas. See you at Pelee. For the birds, and for the human spectacle.

[Howieh]

Hi Norman,

When is the best time to go to Pelee for the spring migration? Btw, there are about thirty robins gorging themselves on berries on one of my neighbours trees. The cardinals are also pretty active but I still haven't seen a bluejay since last fall. Had to 'fend off' the chickadees while shooting the robins; eventually I gave up and fed them just to get rid of them!

[norman]

Howieh: Mid-May, if you fancy songbirds. Things have changed quite dramatically over the last 35 years, mind you ... for example, oft-times there seem to be more humans than avians in the park, and if you're not lined up at the gate at 5 a.m., expect to be detoured to a parking area quite a bit north of the interpretive centre. Try to schedule away from weekends. And there are rules about staying on trails, which took some getting used to, but it was a good move on the the part of Parks Canada. Finding a spot to sleep in your vehicle overnight has become more difficult (we used to park outside the gate -- pretty well the same crowd for years), but be creative, or book into a local "campground" (field), or try Wheatley Provincial Park. Some of the locals are understandably exasperated when birders leave thir vehicles in the middle of the canal road and wander off to look for birds (ask around about the 'Amphibious Car Incident' which occurred on the canal road years ago), so be sensitive to Leamingtonians and spend some money when you're down there.

The interpretive centre is great -- knowledgeable naturalists, including, sometimes, the redoubtable, occasionally cranky Alan Wormington ... okay, "Big Al" isn't crabby, ever ... and an up-to-date sign-in board for rarities, most of which are somewhere else when you get to the reported site. Even with seemingly perfect weather conditions for mass movement of birds, internet radar sites, prognostications by veterans (my aunt has some weird sixth sense re 'big drops') and, who knows, ouija board consultations, you could hit a 'dead spot' for three days, but that's a gamble worth taking.

Perhaps we'll see you there ... I'm fairly nondescript, but Margaret cuts an unmistakably disturbing figure in her trademark floral housecoat and fuzzy pink bunny slippers. I'll tell you about the time she inadvertently set fire to the park ranger's hairpiece with her curling iron during a Coleman cook-out at Sleepy Hollow. I could write a book ....

[Howieh]

Yup, I've heard about the spring crowds but I AM retired so I would never consider going on a weekend. Actually, as crazy as it seems, the plan was to arrive at dawn and leave at dusk but since I am into macro stuff (butterflies mainly) as much as birds, I will probably wait until the summer or until the monarchs are gathering in the fall. And there are other interesting spots much closer to home that I still haven't explored, such as the Carden Alvar, so Pelee may have to wait, but thanks very much for your very informative post.