Blue Wall Weekly February 18, 2019

I’m not ready for winter to end. I like birds in bare branches against gray winter sky, and don’t mind extra clothes. For a few more weeks my ‘spring green’ fix can come from all the greens of many mosses, wrapping around trees, clinging to banks, anywhere deposits of leaves are easily blown away. I watch for swelling buds, but I’m not ready for bloom time. Yet there they are, expatriated trees, already blooming in expensive gated landscapes, stealing attention from the blush of red in the tips of maples, jumping ahead of serviceberry and redbud. Too early, like merchants who push aside Halloween and Thanksgiving to stock shelves with Christmas glitter. By the time this next rain is past, I’ll probably change my tune. Probably. ~K

THE URGE TO FLY. Loons are in the midst of their pre-nuptial molt. Preparing for mating season. Preparing to leave. By the end of next month, most of our loons will be gone, while hundreds of others from winter waters further south will be stopping by on their way home. For the first few years of a loon’s life they are not ready for breeding and do not return to their natal lakes, but rather stay along the Atlantic coast, from Maine to Florida. But they don’t stay on Lake Jocassee, where the fish is plentiful, and life is easy. So why do these young birds leave? My learned friend and loon biologist Dr. Jim Paruk speculates that migrating birds just get the urge to fly this time of year. I understand that. It is a springtime feeling I share with the loons. Not just to follow them north, which I fully intend to do one of these years, but just to fly. To the coast, to the mountains, to all places new and unfamiliar. But then, when spring arrives, the Jocassee Gorges explodes with all things new and fresh and my urge to fly is satisfied right here at home. It’s why I live here.~B