Spring in Marietta

It’s spring in Marietta.

The deciduous magnolias dance in the breeze, their softly perfumed flowers blowsy and extravagant. This time of year, I drive slowly down Marietta’s brick streets, marveling at the sometimes perfect pairing of house to tree. This is one such, a gracious cream-colored house with a rosy magnolia confection gracing its flank. Oh, perfection.

The petals remind me of a fawn’s ear, delicately veined in pink.
Inside, the zillion stamens proclaim its tribe: the Ranales, or magnolias. They include tulip trees, sweet bays, Carolina pineapple bush, and the classic Magnolia grandiflora of Tara. Summer afternoons in Virginia, I’d bury my nose in the creamy, waxen flowers of our shiny-leaved grandiflora, vying for perfume with orange and black beetles. I can still recall the scent, though the tree has long since been cut down.I'm posting this from the parking lot of Curley's Motel in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I'm so busy taking pictures of birds up here that I haven't taken time to download any. I don't know when I'll get Net access again (I'm poaching at Curley's), so I decided to post this Sunday afternoon as I'll be traveling all day Monday.

Despite the frantic nature of my previous post, I began having fun the minute I got behind the wheel on the way to the airport on Friday. It is ever thus with big trips--the preparation is awful, but the trip itself almost erases that angst. If I didn't have so many other cherished life forms depending on me for so many things, it might not be so hard to get away. Talks went great. Whitefish Point Bird Observatory Spring Fling Festival, really fun. Terrific, kind people. Sleeping like a rock. Go figure. I guess I have to go to the Upper Peninsula to get some sleep.

Weather report from the U.P.: 38, snow squalls, peeks of sun. Don't want to guess the wind chill factor. Seen today: northern goshawk, long-eared owl, saw-whet owl. Common loons in breeding plumage. Yeah. This isn't Marietta. I have worn absolutely everything I packed--four layers including long underwear, two hats, two pairs of gloves. Off to find lunch at a restaurant near a spectacular high falls. You'll see it all in time.

Crazy moment: Cellphone rang while I was watching a common loon in breeding plumage powering by my frigid perch on a hawk observation platform. It was Bill, watching a least tern from his platform at So. Padre I. in Texas, thinking about me.

Life is good again.