Spring in Winter Continues

After a spell of weather which included us setting a record heat for one day of 65F (18.3 C), we went on a walk yesterday to get pictures of crocus.

We had already seen snowdrops the week before.

Our own crocus are not out yet, but the unseasonable weather has them blooming early.  We had seen crocus on one of our walks this week (our crocus aren't out yet, probably because where they are planted is a northern exposure) but it was too far away to photograph.  That was in late February.

On our walk yesterday we saw two spots of yellow crocus, but they were too far away to photograph.

But then we saw this.  I took two other pictures but they were too blurry to use.

I thought we were done, but Nature had one more surprise for us.  My spouse pointed it out to me.

A bee.

There have been other signs of spring.  Our local birds seem, in the middle of February, to start singing again.  We've noticed this same pattern for years.

I heard the first Northern cardinal songs around February 21.

On February 26 we heard our first blackbirds and spouse saw our first common grackles.  I know that they will socialize with each other during the winter.  So none of this was a surprise.

But the crocus blooming the end of February isn't .  This is reminding me a bit of 2016 when we had an early spring.  And then we had a snowstorm.

We never got forsythia blossoms that year.  The cherry blossoms were out and died.  Many magnolia blooms did, also.  Daffodils drooped to the ground, never to return that year.

It was the year of what my spouse called droopodils.

We are in an apple growing area, and we've had two years recently with big failures due to early flowering and late frosts.  I do not deny climate change.  It's all around us.

The year of the droopodil was heartbreaking. I hope it doesn't happen again.