It was a warm, foggy morning to start March, just the right feint before winter returns to crush our spirits.

Long-time readers of this weblog will know I have the bird problem, complete with optical accoutrements and life lists.  One of the pleasures of moving to a slightly different ecological space — inland, further north, higher elevation — is the feeling of landing in an alternate universe.  The bird species here are mostly familiar to me, so I’m not completely disoriented, but the distributions are all new.  Crows, omnipresent during Boston winters, have been entirely absent here until perhaps a week ago.  Instead, ravens, crows’ rare cousins in Boston, were my default bird companions during the coldest days.  Now that spring is teasing its arrival, the cast of characters is starting to grow.  I’m afraid my readers will hear perhaps more than they’d like about the avifauna of Sullivan, New Hampshire over the coming months.