Robin Arnold Art

 We finally had a family of Canada geese show up yesterday! The adults, unlike most, seem to be ok with me standing close enough to get some nice photos. What really struck me about the 8 goslings was the amount of fighting going on between them. The fighting was not playful bantering and I had an awful feeling one or two could be killed. This morning when they showed up there were only 7 goslings. There is no way to know for sure what happened to one of the goslings but I do wonder if one of its siblings killed it. We've had a lot of geese on our property and I have never seen goslings fight this viciously.

April usually brings kinglets, yellow-rumped warblers and several other early migrating birds to our property but this year, because of northeast winds, the migration is a little behind schedule. I finally saw a pair of  yellow warblers two days ago near the back of the property. Male Yellow Warbler in dogwood We have several of these warblers nest on our 12 acres every year.  I found this nest in the following photo last year before the leaves of the dogwood had totally blocked it from view. Female Yellow Warbler sitting on her nest. The winter of 2013/2014 was so severe that for the first time in almost 30 years we didn't have any Canada geese goslings being raised on our property and it looked like this year was going to be a repeat of last. In the last week, however, we have had a pair hanging around in our marsh and we're hopeful they'll nest on top of this muskrat house. Our marsh is only about 5 years old so this will only be the second time we've h...