Eastern Bluebird in my meadow in  Brandon Township.  Photo by Jonathan Schechter

Eastern bluebirds perch on barren tree limbs and eye their slowly thawing world. Chickadees sing. Squirrels skitter in overdrive. Skunks pittter-patter at night. Great horned owls hoot from down in the pines. Turkeys kick about slushy snow hunting old acorns. Maple sap drips. Wolves howl in the northern most section of our Lower Peninsula! Woodpeckers drum to dawn.  Crows dance in playful flight.  Raccoons mate: Sometimes in your attic.  Icicles drip. And with people out and about more than before, robins are sighted. But contrary to breathless TV newscasters that will soon proclaim" "The first robin of spring has been seen!" fact of the matter is many robins spend all winter right here in Oakland County. Forget the calender: Spring is when you want it to be as Planet Earth contines her amazing journey around the sun. Just don't put away your snow shovel. Not yet.

Mother Nature is a fickle lady, spring is a sweet tease and robins are false prophets. Winds are shifting. Days lengthening.  And today as I watch a trio of eastern bluebirds on my sun-soaked but still frosted meadow I recall the timeless words of  Thoreau,  "The bluebird comes and with his warble drills the ice and sets free the rivers and ponds and frozen ground."