To the editor:

It was such a long wet winter that the fields couldn’t be mowed until a few weeks ago. This did not please my beautiful pheasant and he fled next door where there was a nice grove of small pines and where he didn’t feel so exposed. There he was joined by both wives and although they may make nests, I don’t think the local red fox will let any hatchlings get very far. The Gold Finches were also offended by the change and immediately stopped going to the Niger seed feeder.

If you feed Hummingbirds you know how worrisomely late they were this year. I see them now but mostly females. It must hard for them to fly in the boisterous wind which is blowing on top of my hill.

For a little while, after a night rain, there was a patch of lawn so wet that the worms couldn’t breathe and they were just below the surface to the delight of a Robin and two Starlings (clad in their yellow summer beaks) who pulled and pulled so quickly that they seemed like wound up toys.

Right now there are some frustrated Catbirds and Orioles as I am NOT going out in 51 degrees and wind to refill the grape jelly holder. (I didn’t realize until I checked my battered old Peterson that female Orioles were just a drab brownish, not gloriously colorful like their mates).

Pretty soon it will feel like May, the magic month, when there is something new popping into bloom every day. Patience!

Sidney Tynan

Little Compton