Wow................had a Robin in the yard today. That is WAY early for us. Also saw a couple of chipmunks running around and the starlings are back an in the feeders. Things are about 3-4 weeks ahead of schedule around here. Sap has been running for over a week now. ????????????
We had a mixed flock of grackles and red-winged blackbirds show up today. Mourning doves are back, Juncos are about gone. Robins have been here all winter.
We have had a flock of 35-50 doves all winter. We had to stop feeding our suet peanut butter mix today as the smaller woodpeckers weren't able to get near it due to the starlings and grackles. Our gold finch population has been absent the last two days as well. Also since the suet supply has dried up, the pair of pileated woodpeckers, which have been here all winter, are now staying back in the bush lot as well.
It is amazing. I remember one spring being in Indiana and we heard some spring peepers in February. Simply amazing. We rarely hear them here until April. However, the night before last my wife was on her afternoon walk and heard them!!!! Saw a robin too. We have lots of red-winged blackbirds and geese and sand hill cranes back already too.
Red wing blackbirds have been around for 2 weeks - only a couple of males though. Chipmunks started coming out 3 days ago. but that isn't really unusual I don't think. The chippies will go back to sleeping if it gets cold again. No buds on trees yet although I don't have the forsythia by the garage anymore it was usually my weather map. Guess I should go look at the forsythia out in the yard and see if the buds on it are starting to swell. Haven't seen any robins but it is not unusual to see them around either. I've had them on my Great Back Yard Bird count tally many times. The biggest sign of spring for me is that the ground is warm enough that even with the cooler temps yesterday and cloudy, I went thru less than a bag of pellets - both stoves together! That means the ground is getting warmed up past the top couple of inches - otherwise the cellar dweller would be running more.
I have been hearing geese heading north for the past week or so. Even tho the ground has a lot of frost in it, looks like an early spring in western Wisconsin.
