March 2026 Spring: goat kids, snowdrops
Wednesday March 4 After a long, cold, snowy winter, spring is starting to show: red witch hazel blossom in Mary and David's front yard, up the street from my house.
Tuesday March 10 Boats appeared at the dock at the pond this morning. A bit premature, seeing as they're perched on top of the ice. The paddle boards lying on the dock seem particularly optimistic.
After a morning Audubon meeting in Concord, I went to Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, the next town over, to check on the goat kids. Two sets of triplets were born in the last couple of weeks. High cuteness quotient.
And they had their maple sugaring operation in full swing, too.
Sudden warmup! Nearly 70 yesterday and 75 today, a record for this day in Boston! You can practically watch the two foot high mounds of snow melting. Several people said to me that they've never seen snow melt so fast.
Wednesday March 11 Walking to the Arboretum, I spotted these hellebores in my neighbor's garden.
And on the way home, snowdrops! Spring is really happening!
Monday March 16 More signs of spring: muskrats active at the pond in the early morning the last week or so, often sitting on the ice a ways off the edge of the pond, next to a small circular opening in the ice sheet. They must be swimming under the ice to get to the opening. Sometimes I see one sitting on the ice one minute, and then gone, under the ice the next. Hearing woodpeckers drumming, sometimes two drumming back and forth between their perches on two trees some distance apart. At Leverett Pond, I saw a few common mergansers in the open water a few days ago. And as of today, the ice is gone from Jamaica Pond.
Thursday March 19 Gorgeous sunrise this morning.
Tuesday March 24 The common mergansers returned to Jamaica Pond right after the water opened up. And the last few days, I've seen half a dozen hoodies there, too. Yesterday, two pairs of wood ducks. Woodpeckers still hammering away. Red-bellied woodpeckers calling.
This morning, there was a dusting of snow on the ground when I woke up. And by this afternoon, it was in the high 40s and the sailboats were out on the pond!
Wednesday March 25 Went to the Boston Nature Center this evening to look for woodcocks. Strange birds, part of the shorebird family yet they don't live at the shore, but rather in forests and shrubby fields. They don't even look like other shorebirds: plump, round, rusty brown and grey bodies, with heads that appear to be glued on with no neck, and long, downward pointing bills.
It's the time of year when the males do their courtship flight. At dusk, they make electric-sounding peent noises, then fly up high and spiral downwards. We heard lots of peents but couldn't see the birds - I think they were hidden in the tall grass. But then just as it was almost too dark to see, one flew fast over our heads, just about 15' above us, across into another side of the meadow. Given how plump and non-aerodynamic they look, it was amazing to see how fast it flew by. Very exciting!
Saturday March 28 Jeannie's Christmas cactus is morphing into an Easter cactus, blooming again.
After going to the No Kings demonstration in Lexington this morning, I went over to Drumlin Farm for Mass Audubon's Woolpalooza event: sheep shearing; wool to yarn displays; lambies; border collie demonstrations.
Sunday March 29 Went to the Waterworks Museum in Brookline with Beth this afternoon. Beautiful stone building housing one large, 3 story tall hall, with three giant pumping machines for supplying water to Boston. The first was installed in the late 1800s, the last one around 1920. Among the displays was this wooden pipe for water; I liked that the sign mentioned Jamaica Pond.
Tuesday March 31 At the pond this morning, a little pied-billed grebe doing its hop-dive over and over, near the little beach at the south side of the pond. I don't think I've seen one in over a year, so fun to see it this morning. And when I told my birding neighbor, Nicholas, about it, he got excited as he's now become a competitive e-birder, looking to maximize the number of species he's seen here in Suffolk County.
Heard from MIT Press this morning that the book publication date has been pushed to May 5 as the binder was a couple of days late in getting the book to Penguin Random House, who distributes the books to booksellers for the Press. Disappointing, but it will be fine in the long run.
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