Maybe it’s the heat. All things green seem to be extra large this year, despite it being droughty. Wild raspberries are also plumper than in years past

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Daily check of the broad-winged hawk nest near our house, high in a maple tree, sometimes reveals a head on the nest and sometimes a tail; the incubating female taking in the view from both directions, as she sits there for 28 to 31 days, giving new perspective to our present stay-at-home situation.

In winter black locust trees are stark – black, with sharply twisted branches, almost creepy. When flowering, as they are now, they are completely covered with gently drooping, beautiful flowers that almost cover a background of delicate leaves.

About one in a thousand ash trees is able to kill some emerald ash borer larvae and forest geneticists have crossed these rare trees with each other in the hope of finding an ash tree that can kill all the larvae.

Some of us need to relearn the thrush songs anew every year: the sort of ee-o-lay of the wood thrush, followed by a buzz; the longish first note of the hermit thrush followed by a jumble; the downward slide (think V) of the veery.

We’ve gained an hour and 9 minutes of light since the winter solstice.

Showy orchis is flowering.

Brooks that often dry up in late summer around here have dried up. It is getting closer to late summer than I like to acknowledge,and it has been abnormally droughty.

A Year of Winter Finches Ahead