Spring is springing little by little. Here on Southport Island things are moving along at a snail’s pace.

Wiscasset is in full bloom along the Route One corridor. We know this because in the last week we have driven through Wiscasset Village six times – somewhat of a record for us!

Down and back to Bedford, New York, for a memorial service. Down and back to Falmouth for another memorial service. And to Ames Supply for a bale of straw to cover the churned up bare spots in the lawn from grub-searching wildlife. I’m not sure if it’s skunks, turkey, seagulls, or crows! Whatever it is, or they are, it’s a real mess! I believe others in the community have had similar experiences. Never seen it this bad. Now that I have seeded and covered the cultivated turf with straw the robins are having a go at it.

Compared to our budding, almost everywhere we traveled to the south is cranking. Plants that are just waking up here were past, especially in Bedford, New York. I know that’s how it works. We’re further north, it’s colder with less sunlight, but it’s interesting to actually see the difference in real time. We are just now seeing the beginnings of the peony buds and the lupine are scrambling for the light.

So, rather than run back up to Wiscasset to photograph budding vegetation, I decided to share a photo from our kitchen table of a hummingbird. How’s that for throwing oneself under the bus? I will save the flower photos for a little later during lupine fest, one of my favorite times of year. And, it looks like a bumper crop this year, if the slugs don’t get ’em! Our raspberries took a serious hit from the deer and porcupine, so we won’t be mentioning those items this growing season. It seems we’ve spent a fair amount of time seeing that the local wildlife is well fed! The turkeys sound happy too as they gobble gobble about the property, crashing into trees as they attempt to escape the well-intended pursuit of our young yet very ambitious Labradoodle, Leica. She goes wherever her nose leads her which isn’t always a special journey!

Now back to our spring visitors. The hummingbirds arrive around the same time as the ducks return to the pond, with remarkably similar timing. The ducks arrived in a snowstorm this year but within a week of last year’s landing. The hummingbird return was almost precisely at the same time. It’s hard to imagine how such a tiny critter could travel so far with so little. We put the feeder out in early May and it’s as if there is some sort of telepathic message signaling available food. It would be interesting to know if the same birds come back.

Maybe we should begin to consider bird migration as an indicator of spring rather than calendar dates and TV forecasts.