Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run? –John Donne
Walking through the woods the other day, the ascending trill of the male Northern Parula signaled the spring songbird migration on the Gulf Coast and the culmination of the breeding season. I have to always remind myself that breeding in birds is not an activity that can be considered circumscribed in time. Courtship, pair-bonding, migration to places with enough food to sustain young, development of breeding plumage, nesting, and rearing young are activities that encompass much of the year. But now is the time to start to be on the alert for the most interesting and conspicuous of these behaviors. It is the best of times . . . .
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