The vernal equinox officially occurred on Friday. Persephone, the flighty Greek goddess of spring, tarried in the Underworld this year. However, Spring, late even in Southern California where drought, not snow, tempered her arrival, is here at last. In the Santa Monica Mountains, annual flowers like lupin and California poppies have just beginning to spring up in the aftermath of our one big March rainstorm.
In the garden, everything seems to be rushing to make up for lost time. The first thing one hears stepping out of the back door is the buzzing of honey bees so loud it sounds like live electricity. They are drawn to the thicket of wild pear saplings that are covered with white blossoms. The thicket is really rootstock run wild after the ornamental pear tree grafted onto it died. It's much tougher and more drought tolerant than the original tree. It also blooms spectacularly in the spring, produces a crop of tiny bitter fruit in the fall that are eaten by the wild birds, and ends the year in a blaze of crimson leaves. The bees aren't the only ones who have come to love it.
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A tiny syrphid fly pollinates a lavender flower. These elegant little native pollinators are also known as flower flies or hover flies. Photo © 2014 S.Guldimann |
Most of the winter migrants have moved on, even the robins, but the dark-eyed junco is still here. I can hear its whistling song and geiger counter-like ticking, alternating with mad splashing from the birdbath, as I type this. Most of the local birds are busy building nests.
I anticipate the loud, insatiable shrieks from baby crows and conure parrot hatchlings any day now—both species are nesting in the neighbor's eucalyptus trees again this year. The great horned owls are back, too. All three species nest early and are already raising their young by the time most of the songbirds are nesting.
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The dark-eyed junco prepares to take a bath. Photo © 2014 S.Guldimann |
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Bathing is a serious business for this energetic winter bird. Photo © 2014 S.Guldimann |
The spotted towhee is another early bird. Its rusty squeak and high-pitched song is part of the spring soundtrack in the garden. You can hear it here.
Spotted towhees are ground nesters and will sometimes take advantage of manmade items like upended pots or abandoned construction materials to shelter their nests. I'm always careful this time of year about picking things up in the garden. I once found a nest under a fallen trash can lid, and another in an overturned bucket.
Spring green is always transient in Southern California. It's arrived later than ever this year and will fade faster than usual, unless more rain arrives soon. All the more reason to seize the day and spend the rest of it in the garden, or in the hills, or on the beach, celebrating the presence—however fleeting—of Persephone.
Suzanne Guldimann
21 March 2014
A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the clown—
Who ponders this tremendous scene—
This whole Experiment of Green—
As if it were his own!
—Emily Dickinson
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