Songs of Spring

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By the way, few of the warblers really warble. As British ornithologist James Fisher noted, their "cheerful noises" include "buzz and tinkle, shirr and twitter, stutter and trill." In Houghton-Mifflin's recently reissued (and superb) book Wild America, by Fisher and Roger Tory Peterson, the former observes about the warbler calls and songs:

Regular, irregular, explosive, lazy, soft, wiry, their voices make me a confused catalogue, with bee and buzz and bz; char, chee, churn, errr; me, miss; orrr; sar, see sir, switch; teach, tea, ti, tiz, teet, to, tory, tsee, tseet, tweet; up; way, wee, weet, which, wi, wont, woods; you; zee, zh, zhee, zi, zip, zit, zray, zree, zur.

Many of the wood warblers (family Parulidae ) migrate through — or spend summers in — only the eastern half of the U.S., but there are some which are more widely distributed, and some which are western specialties. In parts of the U.S. west of the Rockies (in some cases, all the way to the Pacific Coast), you might see orange-crowned warbler, Nashville warbler, olive warbler, Virginia's warbler, Lucy's warbler, yellow warbler, myrtle warbler, Audubon's warbler, Townsend's warbler, hermit warbler, black-throated gray warbler, Grace's warbler, yellowthroat, yellow-breasted chat, MacGillivray's warbler, Wilson's warbler, and maybe American redstart. So, wherever you live, why not keep an eye and ear out for these special gems of the avian world in April or May?

Vortexes and Violets

There's no doubt that April and May are like the adolescence and very young adulthood of the year. They are filled with passion and energy, sometimes beautiful and creative, but sometimes destructive.

The most long-lasting and deadly tornado ever to occur in the U.S. happened in the latter part of March. But most of the worst tornadoes, and the maximum numbers of tornadoes, and the greatest outbreak of numerous tornadoes ever, all occurred in April and May. March is known for its wind, but the greatest wind gust ever directly recorded (higher gusts have been reliably estimated in tornadoes) was one of 231 mph on top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire in April.

March certainly has greater variations in temperature, and this can produce the biggest of all blizzards. In March, you can have forsythias one day and four — or forty — inches of snow the next. On the other hand, a day in April or May can bring you both vortexes and violets. March finds it hard to settle down. April and May bring us some of the softest zephyrs, and the most tranquil mornings and afternoons, to contrast with their outbreaks of severe weather.

The Great Moon-Venus-Jupiter Meeting

I've been an avid amateur astronomer since I was a young child, and thus for over three decades now. But in all that time, I cannot think of there having been a tighter bunching of the night's three brightest objects than what some Americans will get to see before dawn on April 23. The brilliant planet Venus and second-brightest planet Jupiter approach each other for the first twenty-one days of April, then are closest together on the mornings of April 22 and 23. On the latter date, the crescent Moon moves in to skirt just past their paired pulchritude for a truly majestic sight.

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