Happy Easter !

Click to enlarge. 

Spring at Last!

For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remember'd is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins. 

Algernon Charles Swinburne, from "Atalanta in Calydon"

Spring Preview

Spring is a week away and the signs of the season are everywhere. Crocuses are blooming all over New York City. 

The bees are hard at work already. Click to enlarge. 

Red-eared slider turtles are back basking on the rocks at The Lake in Central Park. 

The cardinals seem suddenly more active and vocal. Click to enlarge. 

Same for the blue jays. They seem busy and preoccupied; I've been able to get close enough to photograph them, which is unusual. 

The white-throated sparrows are brightly plumed and ready to breed. Males are singing. 

There are newly opened flowers all around, like these winter irises. 

And more on the way! 

Feeder Style

House finches were hanging around the bird feeders last week in the section of Central Park called the Ramble. Click to enlarge. 

In this picture a few of them are gathered on one of the homemade feeders -- a plastic bottle full of seeds with a hole and a perch on each side. The finches perch, reach in to take a seed, fly away. 

Then this white-breasted nuthatch showed up. 

Perch. Check. Reach in to take a seed? Nope -- it jumped inside and disappeared. 

After a moment it came out the other side, like a fast food drive through. 

A black-capped chickadee showed up. It went in one door and out the other, too. It's a thing!