I LOVE this time of year! Our amphibians are waking up, tree sap starts to run, groundhogs start to stir, and birds are on the MOVE! It’s so exciting! So alive! and yet still the signs are subtle for now, and then in a few weeks, Whoooooosh – the full chorus of Spring is singing and all the dancers are on the stage! Oh how I love it!
Ok, so what inspired me to write this morning is that I just got the first email of the season about the Chimney Swifts and even though it will be few weeks before they get here, I love knowing that they’re on their way! They’re part of this amazing dance of life and hearing that they’re gosh, about half way here already sets my heart a flutter! While we were digging out from the snow, something in them sparked and said, it’s time to FLY! and off they went!
The whole migration “thing” simply amazes me – actually, nature in general just amazes me – it’s such an incredible and beautiful dance of life through time and space, like some complex waltz with partners handing off partners to other partners, a nod and curtsy here and there yet no instructions needed. Just beautiful.
So, back to the point, here’s the news: the first Chimney Swifts of the season have been sighted on the Gulf Coast returning from their wintering grounds in South America. As in past years Driftwood Wildlife Center will be plotting the swifts’ movements northward over the next few months. We won’t see them for a few more weeks but you can watch their movement as fellow naturalists south of us post their sightings at: WWW.CHIMNEYSWIFTS.ORG