Is It Spring Yet?

2-28-19 SHORT HILLS: We have had storm every other day, including last night, but with minimal precip. There was a lot of wind after the previous storm, but only branches came down. It has stayed cold even though the days are more than eleven hours long, and the sun is higher in the sky.

Cold is good. Early warm weather encourages the buds on the trees and shrubs to swell and begin to open, only to have them nipped when the next spring storm happens.

The grackles appeared at the feeders about a week ago and the starlings arrived yesterday. The red-wing blackbirds will probably show up next week.

I always feel that March 1 is the beginning of the season even though it’s cold, snowy and windy this year. Fortunately we are off to Naples for the weekend.


First bunch of starlings followed the first grackles by about a week.

The starlings are so busy hopping around that it's hard to get a decent shot. I took about 100 pix to get  5 decent images.