Springtime Symphony

Late March in Southern Arizona is pretty heavenly.

The skies are filled with scores of birds--woodpeckers, doves, warblers, wrens, finches, sparrows, and the more exotic curved-bill thrashers--who fill the trees with their feathery little bodies and sing their hearts out.  There's the slow, lazy, almost soporific din of bees buzzing about the early flowers.  It's sunny and warm, and the flagstones of my patio soak up the heat and give back just a little taste of what's to come in only a few short months.

Curve Billed Thrasher

Red Breasted House Finch

Cactus Wren

I enjoy sitting on my front patio, watching the birds in our cedar, or the cat's claw acacia, or the mesquite tree.  Sometimes The Man puts orange halves in the branches of the cedar tree and within half an hour, one or both of a mated pair of Gila woodpeckers are there, feasting on a rare treat.  We call them Pedro and Lupe and they've been coming to visit our house for the entire three and a half years we've lived here.  I think they nest in a hollowed out saguaro cactus in the garden of the house opposite us.

There are teeny-tiny lizards playing tag and doing press-ups in the branches of the enormous cedar tree in my front garden.  And the air is heavy, positively redolent with the perfume of orange blossoms and sand verbena.

Sand Verbena

Orange blossoms and ripening fruit

This morning, I went to sit and read on the front patio for an hour or so and I spent more time watching the birds and the lizards than I did actually reading.  The wildlife around here is far more interesting than the book I'm currently reading.  At one point, our neighbour's cat came to drink at our bird bath and then she slipped away into a particularly scruffy portion of the garden.  I made a mental note to ask The Man to have a go at it with the weed whacker tomorrow morning and the realisation that I was taking away the kitty's personal jungle made me sad.  Maybe I'll let the weeds go an extra day or two.

Eventually, though, that nagging little voice in the back of my head, the one that doesn't let me sit idling for too long, reminded me that my books are never going to get edited unless I work on them, so I reluctantly left my comfy, warm, beautifully fragrant spot on the patio and came inside, where I found my own kitties sacked out in a sunbeam.  I'd loved to have joined them, but edits don't get done unless I do them, so I went into my office and sat down to...write this post.  And now I have to quit mucking about and get down to serious business.

Small Cat in the sun

Even though I'd much rather be outside with the birds and the bees, the lizards and the orange blossoms.


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