[birding] snakes are out and feisty

[howard bruner]

Today the season tipped ever so slightly and irrevocably toward the
coming of sun and warmth.  Ankeny was filled with song and water. 
Ruddy ducks sported half bright blue bills, a digger bee landed on my
binoculars, and a very feisty bright orange garner snake attempted to
keep me from passing on up the trail by actually striking several times
like a rattlesnake. Indian Plum is busting out and towhees are ripping
loose with one of the loudest songs in the bottomland forest.  The
cottonwoods have laid down a confetti of bud caps shiny with resin and
chocolate brown song sparrows come to a splish with cocky curiosity.  I
worked one pair of bc chickadees into a female downy woodpecker, 2 wb
nuthatch, a Bewick's wren, 3 song sparrows, a towhee, and several rc
kinglets.  Yellow rumps chipped in many places in the bare branchs
above the bright water that covers the ash roots.  Where water is not
there is green emergence as soil warms and seeds and rhizomes
miraculously begin to grow.  Eagles were mobile and the sky was filled
with griping geese.  The low sun wrestled spun silk ice sheets but the rays
kept the air toasty. Red tailed and red shouldered and red-orange
willow stems and of course that magnificent snake have brought the palette a warmth that a couple of weeks ago was a but a dream on a
silver-gray day. 

H
 		 	   		  
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