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Late Winter/Early Spring (When Everybody Goes to Mexico)

© Terrie Murray

February 2, 2001: Late Winter/Early Spring

I am a big fan of John Denver and his music. On one of his albums (the early 70's, I think) was an instrumental piece entitled "Late Winter/Early Spring, When Everybody Goes to Mexico." I was living in Alaska at the time, and easily identified with the urge to escape the long, cold winter and go someplace warm.

Although my husband and I now live in Oregon, we still feel the January urge to escape the winter rains and head off someplace warm. This year it was, just as John Denver's song suggests, a trip to Mexico. Specifically, the state of Oaxaca. It wasn't your average trip to Mexico. Oaxaca is a very mountainous state, and our prime reason for being there wasn't to lounge on the beach, it was to search for birds. And we found them! In the cloud forest we found toucans and toucanets and exotic aracaris. In the rain forests we found parrots and parakeets and beautiful golden-cheeked woodpeckers. In the low-lying thorn forests we found warblers and tanagers and orioles of all hues. If you'd like to read about my trip, including some photos and a list of the birds I saw, you can read my informal report at http://www.teleport.com/~timurray/Oaxaca...

Now back in Oregon, I note changes in my yard during the two weeks I was away. Purple and white crocuses have poked through the ground and bloomed. Song sparrows have begun to sing territorial songs, and the western scrub jays have begun chasing each other through the trees. My resident squirrel family is getting ready to expand, I saw the dominant female pulling her obviously pregnant body through the trees this morning. I'll put out some peanuts later, just to make her life a bit easier.

The English holly berries have reached the peak of their ripeness, as evidenced by the huge flock of American robins which has moved into the yard, along with a smaller flock of cedar waxwings. They will stay to eat the holly berries, supplemented by windfall apples, and then they'll disappear until next winter. Oh, a few will stay behind and nest in the neighborhood, but not in the numbers of the winter flock that I'm seeing now.

My two Anna's hummingbirds, a male and a female, are still showing up at the feeder for regular meals. I am hopeful that they will nest in the yard this year. I planted a red flowering currant last summer, just for them. When the weather warms and frost danger has passed, I'll put out fuchsias and salvia, both favorites of the all-year resident Anna's and migratory rufous hummingbirds that I see in my yard.

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