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The photo to the left is our rental house as of April 3, 2012. We are fully into Spring now. Shawnne is getting her garden ready. She planted peas today. Last year at the same time we still had bits of snow scattered on the property (and lots of water in the basement from melted snow). March started out about normal in temperature but by mid month the temperature started to jump. Five of the first 10 days were below normal but all the days afterward were above normal. Our only significant snow of 2012 was on Feb 28-29th. That melted quite quickly. We had no snow at all in March. It can snow in April but if it does that snow will fall on warm ground so it will not stay.
I am sure many Minnesotans love Winter and bemoan the rather warm and snowless winter we just had. As for ourselves we do not. We are avid birdwatchers and the migration seasons are the best part of the year as far as we are concerned. We were looking forward to the end of Winter but we had no idea Spring would start so quickly and so dramatically. We had 5 days over 70 in March. Shawnne has been grilling whenever she can since mid March.
Spring is here very dramatically. We saw our first Flicker in early April of last year, this year they came back on 3/20/12. In 2011 I was often able to guess when the birds would show up simply by looking that the records from Randall. This year I am looking at what showed up 2 weeks later in previous year and guessing that is what will show up now.
We had one Bluebird house last year. This year we have 2. The Bluebirds showed up on 3/14/12. They have made an investigation of one of our houses but I don't think they are nesting there yet. The Tree Swallows showed up a few days ago and seem to have become active. They were perching on the second Bluebird house. They haven't moved in but I am sure they will if the Bluebirds don't.
Below is a photo of a Hooded Merganser. We have had a good variety of ducks on our lake, but no great numbers. We have had Buffleheads, Wood Ducks (who nest here), Common Megansers. Greater Scaup (at least that is what we think they are). We have also had Common Loons, Pied-billed Grebes and Double-created Cormorants.
Spring is still early so we hope to get a few more.
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