Spring Storm

A storm struck Sunday, with wind and rain and hail that pounded everything in sight.

The baby robins on the west side of the house received the full brunt of the storm. I thought that if the wind hadn't blown them out of their nest then the hail would pummel them senseless--that they'd be the first front yard casualties of spring. But much to my surprise, they survived, along with their parents. (Note to robin couple: Do what the smarter robins do and build your nest under an awning, use a roost, build under a pergola, use the south or east side of a building, and better yet, rent an apartment.)

Some random notes:

(1) Chip-Chip is getting into his wanderlust mood again, racing across the street and into the neighbor's garage. If he lasts the summer, he can thank higher fuel prices and reduced driving by minimum wage, surly teenagers who would love to run him down for sport.

(2) Rose is getting tamer by the day. She now practically sits with me on the back deck and reads the Sunday paper with me. Her favorite section is the comics, Dilbert in particular. Like many other chipmunks, she also jumps up on pots, digs holes in them, and even rolls around on top the cool, dry composted soil. Yesterday, she chirped like a bird, and I wondered whether she was chirping for her peanuts or for a boyfriend. Maybe both.

(3) Beyond his current stalker--who's still creeping around menacingly--Chipper may anticipate more struggles with squirrels. Yesterday, a frisky baby grey squirrel tussled with its mother as she gathered dead grass for their nest. That hyperactive little critter wouldn't give its mother a break, even insisting on a (short-lived) piggyback ride. I wonder who would win in a tussle between a full-grown chipmunk and a baby grey squirrel. It probably would end up in a disqualification: The mother and twenty-seven relatives would jump the chipmunk at the slightest sign of distress for the baby squirrel.

(4) The catbird couple is also getting tamer by the day. The notoriously shy birds will land on the miniature birdbath on the floor of the deck and have a leisurely drink of water. They're getting so tame in fact that I almost walked up to them before they flew off. Suet may be the key. With the cold weather and the scarcity of insects, the grey catbirds may out of necessity get used to me in order to get what little fat they can find. Perhaps there's a lesson in that for the other songbirds that have died in Minnesota: Share your fat with a starving bird. (Especially when the temperature is still flirting with the thirties . . . )

(5) More critters have passed through: Mourning doves, rose-breasted grosbeak, indigo bunting, Baltimore oriole, cardinal, one nervous mole, one scruffy looking rabbit, two ruby-throated hummingbirds, and one plump 13-lined ground squirrel. More pictures will follow to document my claims because, no doubt, my readers are skeptical about some of my claims. No doubt.