Every season this year came off-balance—warm too early, cold too early, ferociously windy or wet, then oddly calm and too dry. Our heat goes off, comes on, windows open and close, we pile on blankets then shed them a night later, and watch nature’s confusion.

We assumed our sparrows didn’t come back this year, since we hadn’t seen them. My father-in-law built a bird house which we hung on the side of our garage, and a year later we had tenants. That was 20 years ago, and every year since, at the same time, they returned and rehabbed their nest. Not so this year. There was no activity around, or coming or going from the house. Even their offspring, who took up residence in a lovely little painted house we received as a housewarming gift when we moved here, and hung next to it, seemed absent.

I was tempted to assign some spiritual significance to it, beyond the obvious sparrow behavioral reasons they didn’t appear, but I’ll resist. In the meantime, we started seeing the appearance of other birds—red wing blackbirds, who squawk at us and chase us out of the yard, and house finches, who sing beautifully yet are too shy to get close. I’m told there are orioles in the area, and that they can be lured to our yard by hanging orange sections from branches, but I haven’t done it yet.

This morning, I heard a familiar cooing outside my window, and there was a lone mourning dove, watching me watching it as it nibbled at seeds which are plentiful at this time of year, always, and everywhere. Their willingness to be observed, their lack of fright comforts me in view of disquieting bits of tilt in the seasons.

And bees are back in abundance here, largely because an early onset of warm temperatures, and almost an entire month of rain has fooled every plant that flowers into blooming, even while frosty mornings are still in the future. Thus, daffodils were up at the end of February, and lilacs, which usually don’t bud and flower until early May, were in full bloom by mid-April.

Nature removes, nature gifts.

Our sparrows are back now, as we saw them darting in and out of their little brown house.

Simply remarkable. Blink, and everything changes.

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