Iris sibirica - and bird song
15 April
Another non-native flower but a welcome marker of early spring while waiting for the Sanguinaria and other desirable species to push through the leaf litter … not long now.
Chirripy, chirp, cheep, tweet …
I was sadly reminded by the article linked below, that every year as we enter the second half of April I realise that in a very few weeks there will be more birds asked by the leaves on the trees that can only be identified by their songs. For me, this is difficult. My brain is visual and I have no memory for tunes - I’d be hard pressed to whistle the children’s favourite “If you go down to the woods today” or the national anthem. Compound that with my increasing year by year deafness … exorbitantly expensive hearing aids do help there but basically I have long come to the conclusion that beyond an American Robin and a Raven, the rest is, more often than I would like, not much more than optimistic guesswork.
Anyway, all that is to draw your attention to this really excellent article.
Loved that article about birding by ear. I hear our wrens—Marsh, Bewick’s, Pacific—far more than I see them.