Jefferson salamanders are the earliest vernal pool visitors, arriving even when there’s lots of ice.

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Every green thing is fully leafed out now and so far very little has been eaten by insects or has been food for fungi. A short-lived lushness that’s almost tropical.
A friend and I were trying to decide which birds were the most aggressive at the birdfeeder and we concluded that they all were pretty feisty, from the mourning doves right down to the hummingbirds.
Snowy owls have recently been seen in Vermont. We’ve all heard that they leave their arctic home when food there is scarce but another reason for these erratic irruptions might instead be that they occur following an unusually successful breeding season – successful because of an abundance of prey.
Now that the ground has really frozen, some of us can cross a few jobs that we didn’t quite get to off the list.
Now that the wasps have filled all the ground holes in all the electrical outlets in the garage, they’ve begun using the fancy solitary bee and wasp apartment house that was made of reeds especially for them. The female lays an egg, tucks in provisions for the larva, and fills the hole with fine mud, without my noticing. I’ll try to catch her in action from now on.
First outdoor lunch; no jackets needed.
Twin fawns are frolicking in the evening. It’s so innocent seeming, it’s hard not to feel a sense of anthropomorphic dread on their behalf.
Birds that make a second nest are at it. Empty robin eggshells, the phoebe fee-beeing away, bluebirds at the bird boxes, and wrens carrying twigs are all back.