Our beautiful early spring continues, and with it this noon came a surprising bullsnake sunning sluggishly on the driveway. I nearly hit the poor thing as I drove in, but slammed on the brakes just in time–then had the dickens of a time to convince it to move into the safety of the yard.

The other seasons blend seamlessly into each other, summer a gradual heating up of spring, autumn a slow predominance of the monsoon’s coolness, winter a brief deepening and a darkening. But even here in the desert southwest, spring is different. Just last week it was cold, bitterly cold by Tucson standards, and now these past two days have seen Mourning Doves in soaring display flight, Anna’s Hummingbirds and Lesser Goldfinches increasing in volume and in vocal persistence, and Gambel’s Quail prospecting for nest sites everywhere from the pots on the front porch to the top of our owl box. It’s spring here in southeast Arizona!

When he's not gobbling seed, this Gambel's Quail is on the roof singing.

Yes, I did get a haircut today, but that’s not what I mean.

Our lovely little gray house guest, the Western Screech-Owl, remains reliable in the box in our big mesquite, where he can be found most days languidly sunning. The view is especially good and especially close from our bedroom window, and now that I have my vision back, I like to stand there eye to eye with the fluffy one, who is obviously aware of the observer but almost never reacts with anything more vigorous than a wink.

This evening I stood in the window watching the owl when suddenly he (we call it a “he,” why I don’t know) opened his eyes wide and half-ducked, half-slid into the box and out of sight. A moment later a female Anna’s Hummingbird shot into the tree and hovered, chipping loud enough to hear through the glass, in front of the entrance. It took a good twenty minutes for poor Mr. Megascops to recover sufficiently to poke his head out again!

I don’t like money very much, though maybe I’d change my tune if I ever got close enough to any to really get to know it. But even I’ve noticed how strong the US dollar has grown over the last couple of months, and it’s certainly made a big difference to us here at WINGS. With the British pound down below $1.50 and the Euro back to about $1.30, North American birders suddenly find themselves in the unwonted position of once again being able to travel on the relative cheap. I spent the first part of this week setting lower prices for many of our international tours, and expect to spend the last part of it dreaming up schemes to get on some of those tours myself!