Nature Watch, Mar. 20, 2024

Remembering last year: the great December wind, the historic hard frost in May, and the damaging flood of July ’23. Feeling “Destructive Weather PTSD” until I head outside. Wild leeks are just starting to pierce last year’s matted leaf cover. Redwing blackbirds are konk-lur-reeeeing, and I startle a robin inspecting one of the pasture ant mounds in the field. The active mound itself hosts a world of beautifully colorful leafhoppers, brown and peach with white pinstripes, bounding over the warm mound, mating pairs here and there on the south side of the warm, elevated mound. More about these harbingers of spring and fine weather, later.