It's here

The chipmunks have returned to Chipmunk Ridge, so spring is officially here. I didn't quite get all of last year's leaves cleared from all the flowerbeds, creating a discordant note among the daffodils and muscari, but the creatures of spring don't seem to mind at all.

•  The grackles are strutting their grackle stuff.
• The goldfinches are golden again.

• The starlings are getting their breeding plumage and eating everything in sight. (Note to self: put out more suet.)
• Robins are hitting the grass gardens and leaving with beakfuls of nesting materials.
• A pair of red-shouldered hawks is spending lots of time in the neighborhood, though no one has seen the nest yet. (But my, are they noisy.)

Unfortunately, the first casualty of spring has arrived. Yesterday, beneath the American holly favored by a host of our block's birds, a small white egg lay broken on the driveway. Its contents were attracting lots of attention from the season's first ants, but I didn't get close enough to attempt to determine its species (and probably couldn't have, anyway). Definitely not a robin is as much of an ID as I could manage.

But--t
he first violets are blooming, and there will undoubtedly be more eggs laid in the neighborhood.