I love Spring on Bickley’s Pond. Here, from the big window in my studio, I watch the world come back to glorious life. Everywhere you look there’s something magical to see. I am amazed by the grasses and trees and shrubs, the tiny leaves that appear from nowhere.

But I am most captivated by the sweet animals who share their lake with us.

The Canada Goose couple has been here for years, rearing brood after brood after brood. They’re nesting again and although I don’t know exactly where–the sweet Mama is on the eggs while Papa hangs in our cove keeping an eye out for her and any Canada Goose interlopers.

He floats around out there day after day, waiting, watching. And the moment anyone arrives and lands on his lake, anywhere near his beloved, the most awful racket ensues.

How devoted he is.

And the mallards? (See them there in the distance.) They are the sweetest. They swim side by side every moment, combing the pond and its shoreline for the perfect place to build and bring into the world a new paddling* of ducklings.

You may remember the year they nested right in our yard beneath the day lilies, then that big snake came and ate the eggs. (Well, one snake only ate two or three. The next day the mate came and finished off the rest.)

(mallard eggs, circa 2015)

(egg-filled snake, circa 2015)

Good lord I’m still not over it.

And the bluebirds.

My beloved bluebirds.

We’ve raised seven (?) nests together. And now, after all this time (and all my perfecting of their home sweet home), this Spring there is NO NEST.

I am a little heartbroken.

(Now that I am finally supplying mealworms, there is one male/female combo that feeds. But the female looks to be a youngster.)

I feel worried and fretful over Mama and where she might be. Or maybe this isn’t the original couple after all, and maybe after all those babies they’re off in Boca enjoying retirement and the Early Bird Special. (Forgive me.)

Whatever the case, it is a magical time of year. I am reminded April after April after April:

There’s always, always a new chance for joy!

XXOO

*A group of baby ducks is actually called a “paddling.” Isn’t that the best?

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