crystal days

After a week of sneak peeks at spring - shedding sweaters, working in the garden, we woke up to snow! The daffodils were bending over, glazed in a thin layer of ice.

Gold finches, hairy and downy woodpecker , Northern Flicker, dark eyed juncos have been
happy to find their meals at our birdfeeders.

Song birds

Right now there is a chorus outside my window. I love hearing the house finches, gold finches, sandhill cranes and red-winged blackbirds. The red-winged blackbirds spread their wings displaying scarlet epaulettes and spread their tail feathers whenever they send out that trilling
call. I remember hearing them in marshes in Massachusetts when I was a little girl. Spring seems to hold lots of childhood memories.

Not just another day in the Park

I left the world of green grass, sunshine yellow daffodils and gold finches singing in my yard for the uncertain weather of Yellowstone Park. From my house to Yellowstone is about 90 miles by car, closer by as the raven flies and several weather patterns difference.

The snow is clearing except in the higher country. Gray-crowned rosy-finches are flocking like a "startle" of finches. Sandhill cranes are preening and beginning to nest. Coyotes delighting in
rodent suppers and Mountain bluebirds decorating the sage and grasses with brighter-than-sky blue.

I didn't see any bears, but they are out and wandering around, except for the mamas with brand new cubs.

Wildness is amazing

Every time I visit Yellowstone National Park I am amazed and astonished by the gifts of land and skies. On this visit Wednesday, a "startle" of gray-crowned rosy-finches flew across the road, mountain bluebirds splashed blues all over the sage and tan grasses, bison ran in circles to stir up some mud for baths, pronghorn roamed the hills, a coyote hunted, white cloud tatters cast shadows on snow covered mountains and sandhill cranes preened by a pond

echoes of wolf

The print in the snow is the size of my hand. We missed the wolf by about an hour. Still, the knowing that he was there sends chills through me. For the rest of the day in Yellowstone Park -mountain blue birds have returned and flew ribbons of azure along the road, bison alternately pawed through snow and ran circles in bare spots to rough them up for a dust bath, pronghorn antelope grazed on old grass, a coyote hunted, a red-tailed hawk circled me with shadows and his "screeee".
It's always a treasure day in the Park

9 million year old voices

Today, for the first time this spring, I heard the call of the sandhill cranes. Scientists tell us that
they can be traced back 9 million years! Their rattling call sends chills up my spine. Music to my spring-hungry ears.

impressions

The impression of paw prints are about half the size of my hand. They have been left less than an hour from the time I see them. They are not left by Coyote, but by Wolf. The sun, just lifting off from the horizon on a sage-brushed bench above the Yellowstone River, is turning the blue of predawn snow melt in the print into salmon, then turquoise as the sky lightens. The wind is chilled by distant snow. Reluctantly I leave the impressions of the hunter and turn to continue walking up hill with classmates together for " Raven and Coyote" in Yellowstone National Park. We set up scopes and glass the hill on the opposite side of the river for a grizzly bear feeding on a recent kill.
Ravens in their pecking order hop, leap and fly in a pattern of glossy shadows. Yellowstone gives up its secrets uneasily. The grizzly rolls over, sated, and the Ravens move in. Coyote, skilled in singing more than one note at a time, serenades us. The tricksters are afoot.