We used to have a cat that liked to sit atop a fence post, going to great trouble to wash her face for hours while being dive-bombed by barn swallows. Sometimes, they would actually brush her with their wings and a couple of times she even fell off the post. The swallows in our barn can fly out one big door, zoom around the outside of the barn and come back in through the other end. When the young are fledged out and starting to fly, we get some outrageous displays of flying with 8 or 10 swallows blasting through the barn together and occasionally hitting us on the head or shoulder with a wing tip. Once in awhile I imagine how it would feel to have a bird come hurtling into my face, but so far it hasn't happened. Either they have better control than I credit them with, or I'm just very lucky. (o:
I haven't seen any frogs in either of my ponds yet, but there are plenty of Spring Peepers and Wood Frogs back in the drainage creek behind the barn. At night, the Peepers are singing so enthusiastically, that the PEEEEEEEEP PEEEEEEPPP PEEEEEEPPPP is practically deafening when you're outside. But I love hearing them because they are so much a part of the spring and early summer night. The sound of them sends me back to a time when I used to hear them each night up on the Ottawa River in the 50s and 60s. That and the sound of the Whippoorwill each night. Have you ever heard one? They are part of the Nightjar family. Once in awhile we have had one here at the farm, but up on the Ottawa, I don't think a night went by without at least a few minutes of Whip-poor-will echoing through the forest.
Today, I walked around the farm, enjoying the look of the new, young leaves which are only partly emerged on the trees. Everything looks so fresh and soft green right now. Back in the fields, the birch forest is a soft green haze. It's a wonderful time of the year. |
