While it is exciting to see everything green up and pop out of the soil, it is with some sadness that I bid farewell to the skeletons of Winter. For the last five months, most of the trees, shrubs, and perennials have been unclothed. Now, they are on the cusp of bursting out with leaves concealing their backgrounds. Watching squirrels and other creatures crunch their ways across the landscape will stop as their journeys will be obscured. A blanket of green will hide the rock outcroppings, fallen trees, and shafts of light creating a myraid of moving shadows against the hill.
But the sight I will miss the most are the upper branches of our failing sugar maple, home to a wide range of woodpeckers. For most of Winter, I have seen northern flickers and red-bellied, downy, hairy, and pileated woodpeckers swoop up and down in the sky on their way from their hollowed-out perches to our suet feeder. Their homes are fragile as some break away from the tree with each large wind or storm. I will watch their flights even more carefully over the next few weeks before the entrances to their nests are eliminated from view.
