Just Purple Flowers

 

I am seeing purple flowers everywhere. Like striped crocuses.

Periwinkle.

A crocus with a visitor.

Glory-of-the-snow.

And rogue hyacinths.

Pretty! Click on the photos to enlarge.

Spring Comes on Thursday

By astronomical reckoning, spring will arrive this Thursday, March 20. Meteorologists already started spring on March 1. For me, it begins the first time I hear this bird sing. It's a white-throated sparrow. I heard one singing this morning! Click on this sentence for a recording on the Cornell Lab or Ornithology website.  Let the spring begin!

 

Daylight Savings Time is On

 

Daylight savings time starts today. It was dark when I got up this morning. It will be light longer this evening. Most of my clocks turned themselves forward automatically, but the microwave is still living in the past and will have to be changed manually. Check your place for rogue devices.

On the seasonal update front, bees are visiting the crocuses. Click to enlarge. 

And heads up for a lunar eclipse on March 14th. A red moon is coming!

It's Meteorological Spring!

 

A local witch hazel bush is covered with squiggly flowers now, despite the sudden return of frigid temperatures. My fingers nearly froze while I was taking pictures of it this morning! It's officially spring now, starting March 1 according to the reckoning of meteorologists. In another 17 days, we'll achieve astronomical spring at the equinox.

To recap -- the crocuses in my yard came out last week. Click to enlarge. 

Snowdrops appeared in early February.

And now this. Welcome, early bloomers!

First Crocus!

 

I found this crocus blooming in my yard yesterday. It's time to quote Algernon Charles Swinburne again.

" ... time remembered is grief forgotten 

And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,

And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins."

Click to enlarge.

31 Days Until Spring

 

Snowdrops are blooming despite the icy rain. Click to enlarge the photo. I have started counting down to spring. Here's a link to a website that makes that easy: https://days.to/until/spring. It tracks other things, too. Like, the next full moon is 4 days away. Just 22 days to Robert Burns Day! And 64 days until Easter. 

Go Birds!

Grey February with ice in the Delaware River and a color coordinated gull. 

Birds have a sophisticated heat exchange system of closely arranged blood vessels that warm blood coming back to the body from the legs, while simultaneously cooling blood flow in the other direction. The bird's core does not lose energy. The bird stays warm inside its insulating feathers. Click to enlarge.