In the morning, Sara was cooing in the dog kennel. I removed the blanket I had put over the top, said "good morning," and went to make coffee in the kitchen. Then, at the top of her voice, she started singing what we call the "egg song." It's that loud rhythmic hen song that all the hens sing to announce to the whole world that they are going to go and lay an egg. It echoed and bounced all throughout our tiny, sleeping house. Since Cob-weaver and Mosquito were still sleeping and I still hadn't had my coffee, I quickly carried Sara in her kennel out to the chicken yard and let her out. When I came back in the house, Cob-weaver was awake and rubbing her eyes.
Ant wakes up really, really early. He has farmer's hours, but with no farm to tend to, so at 4:30 am, he goes outside to listen to the world waking up. He told us that he heard lots and lots of birds chirping, tweeting, and pipping high in the sky. Swallows, especially. It's spring migration and we are right on the Pacific flyway. This is the major bird super highway that follows the coastline. During migration, birds use the strong storm winds to help push them over large distances and in spring, everyone is going north. They usually come in waves in front of storms. In between storms, there can be fall-outs, where they literally fall out of the sky, land and refuel. When you are in the middle of a fall-out, the trees are dripping with birds, a lot of them are warblers, tanagers and orioles, the dazzling and bejeweled ones. It's a good time to year to look for fall-outs.
Cob-weaver's caterpillar has made a cocoon. It's a moth, for sure. She was right, as always, it's not a cabbage-white butterfly.
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