prairie notes #38: Snow Birds & Trout Lilies
Prairie Notes are monthly photo/journal observations from Tandy Hills Natural Area by Founder/Director, Don Young. They include field reports, flora and fauna sightings, and more, mixed with a scoop of dry humor and a bit of philosophy. They are available free to all who get on the FOTHNA email list.
Snow Birds & Trout Lilies
Prairie Notes #38
February 11, 2010
Tandy Hills Natural Area is very much alive in the dead of Winter! The sound of snow falling and snow birds flying are filling the air above Tandy Hills Natural Area with beautiful music.
As the heavy, heavy snow continues to pile deeper and deeper, thousands of Cedar Waxwings and Robins are swarming over Tandy Hills. For the past few days the sky above our beloved prairie has become a kind of L.A. Freeway for uncountable numbers of these birds. The permanent residents, Cardinals, Jays, White-wing Doves and Sparrows are in a tizzy. Grackles are keeping their distance. The cosmopolitan invaders are pulling rank.
At the top of the local avian food chain, however, a Cooper's Hawk watched the countless newcomers with aplomb. The drive-thru window just came to her/him. Life doesn't get much better than this.
Meanwhile, the first Trout Lily of 2010 has already bloomed and posed gracefully for me last week. They keep blooming earlier every year, or it seems that way. The one pictured below is one of tens of thousands at THNA that are gradually reaching through the snow and up to the sky where the snow birds fly.
Ray Charles was right on when he sang that famous line from the unofficial Prairie Fest anthem, O What a Beautiful Morning:
"The sounds of the Earth are like music."
PS: Go here, to read about my February 2008 encounter with a drunk Cedar Waxwing:
