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A COOL, CLOUDY, WINDY MORNING

CUTOVER AREA WITH THOUSANDS OF BLOOMING JUNEBERRIES

Saturday,  8:00 AM.  44 degrees F, wind mostly northerly and calm with occasional strong gusts.  The sky is mostly cloudy but shows signs of clearing.  The humidity is 76% and the barometer looks steady, at 30.25".
   The hummingbirds are back!  I saw one clearly eying the feeder I filled and put up two days ago, but had no chance for a photo. My target date for their arrival is May 15, so maybe they are a few days early, maybe not. Anyway, if the feeder is not up when they arrive they are likely to go elsewhere and it is difficult to entice them back.  The one I saw looked like a male, which arrive first to establish their territories and await the arrival of the females and juveniles. The life histories and migrations of these remarkable little creatures are truly amazing.
   In other birding news, a pair of chickadees appears to have claimed our birdhouse on the back porch. They flit around it and perch on it constantly, and although I have not seen either go into the house, they probably are doing so.  Perhaps the female has already laid eggs.  We have had several chickadee families raised in our porch birdhouse over the past several years, and twice we have been fortunate to see fledgelings leave the nest, one year five of the youngsters tumbling out and flying off, one after the other.
   The photo is of about a fifty acre cutover with thousands of blooming Juneberries, along Hwy. 2 west of Iron River.  Enlarge the photo to get the full impact of the sight.

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