Spring is Sprung

The spring is sprung,
¨The grass is riz
I wonder where the birdies is.
The birdies they are on the wing
But that’s absurd
The wings are on the bird.

Following on from last Sunday’s cries of “He is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” the same could apply to the grass that has now appeared from underneath the melted snow. Untended since last September – and not done properly then – the lawn looks like the matted head of a sleepy teenager emerging from under a duvet. Green, of course, as indeed is the hair of many a teenager.

Shine on, sun, please keep shining and dry it out so that I can run the Flymo over it. The icy wind seems to have gone for the time being, too, so perhaps spring really is only just around the corner. There are buds full of promise, and – alas! – the perennial weeds beginning to reappear.

As for the birdies, they are valiant little beings and have been faithful visitors throughout the bad weather. Blackbirds “lose” their voices during the winter, and it takes a couple of weeks of practice to get back into the warbling habit, which is Mr Blackbird’s way of marking his territory.

An adult blackbird male. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our resident blackbird has been squawking rather like a boy whose voice is breaking, but producing more and more trills among the squawks until this morning he actually managed a short sequence of true throstle song.

For the benefit of my American readers, for whom a blackbird is a rather dismal creature, I have to point out that in Europe and Britain, a blackbird is a glossy, yellow-beaked turdus merula with a beautiful and very varied song, and is a good mimic. A friend used to whistle phrases from JS Bach, and found the blackbird in his garden was whistling them back to him! So whether the bird is on the wing or the wings are on the bird, a warm welcome to those particular harbingers of spring.