Spring?

Today is the first day of spring, according to the calendar. And we have had a day here and there of sun and relative warmth. Whenever that happens, I dash outside and take photos of the blooming flowers, who know it should be spring... any day now.

The hellebores are happy... rain or shine...

So are the honeybees, who love hellebore pollen.

Zillions of daffodils are blooming, getting beat down by rain, then lifting themselves up again when the rain stops. The ones that don't come back up, I cut for inside flowers.

The primroses are happy, too. Rain doesn't bother them at all.

Kitty "helps" whenever I'm in the garden... if it's not raining. She thinks she should be in every photo.

The peacock is looking to see if there's something for him to eat in the barrel...

... or maybe over by the driveway where I throw out seed for the wild birds every morning. He rushes over and hi-grades it before the quail and sparrows and jays can eat it up.

The Cornus mas dogwood (Cornelian cherry) is in full bloom. Maybe it will get cherries this year if frost allows. If so, maybe we will get to eat some... if the birds allow.

The camellia's first bloom of the year...

An elephant in the bamboo!

Can you tell it's an elephant here?

A Mourning Dove enjoying some rare sun.

White crocuses bloomed early in my brother's memorial garden.

Looking toward Spirit Mtn with the horse barn in the distance, the south field was not green yet when I took this photo one sunny day, but the alders were slightly pink with catkins...

Yesterday was another rare and beautiful sunlit day. I went to the coast. A pair of Bald Eagles were resting on a log in Siletz Bay, far from shore so a little blurry in my camera.

I rendezvoused with a new friend from Idaho to search for a seldom-seen-in-Oregon bird, a Brown Thrasher that has been seen by many this winter at a coastal nature trail... and not seen by many others... including us yesterday.

But we did see my favorite coastal birds... Black Oystercatchers...

A cormorant posed in front of the surf...

And a Song Sparrow sunned himself from a perch just a few feet away, so accustomed is this Boiler Bay bird to people.

Sunny days are all the more welcome for their rarity. Rain is forecast again for the next ten days. Sigh.

I'm planning to build an ark...