Spring is sprunging

What can one say about Spring that hasn’t already been said? Aside from "new life" bursting out all over, the noise level has picked up some -- even before the sun starts to come up the hills are alive with the sound of “music.”(but I already wrote about this didn't I?) The migrants are returning, the Towhee has come back, the Killdeer is staking out a territory along the state right of way (they build their nests in the oddest places – maybe I’ll write about that sometime). Unfortunately, the habitat here has changed so much that the woodcock no longer shows up. For many years we were entertained by the males’ strange whirring courtship flight and their bizarre “song” which sounds something like “bzeep” (thanks RTP for that). And interesting things are going on here at night. Two raccoons were perched on the bird feeder in the wee hours of the morning last week twittering at the cat, who was sitting in front of the window (on my scanner) watching them. And last night when I went to retrieve the suet cakes for the birds (to keep the raccoons from eating them) I heard foxes barking in the brush a stone's throw from the back door (wonder what THEY were up too???) I've never seen the bobcat that the highway workers told us about but I heard it scream once -- at least I think it was bobcat. Well, here is William Wordsworth’s take on Spring for anyone who missed it in high school English:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company.
I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
***
Happy Easter!
The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!!!