Spring is coming. I know this because my front yard and at least one neighboring yard filled up this morning with a hungry flock of migratory robins and starlings. There were probably about 30 birds in all, voraciously grabbing up food of some sort from the ground. My bet is on juniper berries, given the tree they flocked under.

It’s too early for our summer robins to arrive yet, and I was surprised to find robins paired with starlings, so I went searching for info: Do robins, in fact, migrate with starlings? I learned that mixed flocks aren’t uncommon, at least among fruit-eating birds. I didn’t see starlings listed specifically as birds that migrate with robins, but they are migratory. It’s possible that our local starlings saw robins descend to the ground to dine and got attracted to a possible food source, but the fact that they all pretty much arrived and left together suggests to me they were a mixed flock.

So spring is coming. Hooray! I’m happy for the reminder because last weekend January turned to January for pretty much the first time. We got a downpour of rain followed by a driving snowstorm, and then a brilliantly clear blue day; blue sky in January is pretty much synonymous with a cold snap in Illinois, so we did a bit of shivering and made soup and put our sandwiches under the broiler for a couple of days.

It’s warmed up since then, but with the snow came a lovely visitation of snowmen all over the neighborhood. This guy was my favorite, very cheery and bright, but laced through with dead leaves because of the rain that came before the snow.

With a hint of spring in the air today (temperature only 35, but no wind, and … remember … robins!), those snowmen that have survived are much less distinct. One looked much more like a seated snow dog than a man. Today’s favorite … this little guy, nearly headless but so nicely scarved:

Reading for the season

I’m looking for a good almost-spring book. If you are, too, I have one good suggestion: The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How they Communicate, by Peter Wohlleben. I read it this winter, and it’s full of miraculous information about the life of forests, which seems just perfect for spring. For now, I’m reading my garden catalogs and plotting my seed order. It’s one of my favorite January-February pastimes, and I’m contemplating a raised vegetable bed this year, so the possibilities feel endless.

Robins and starlings: Fun links

• American robin migration info
• Birds that form large flocks together
• Starling facts

There are many reasons why I like doing crossword puzzles in general and the New York Times crossword in particular. One is that I learn things.

How is it that I didn’t hear that the singular form of they was named Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2019 back when that happened in early December? This embarasses me as an editor, and especially as a former news editor – although perhaps that’s a partial excuse, since the AP Stylebook long ago (2017) started accepting a singular form of they.

Shame-faced though I be, I’m also delighted by they‘s selection. As an old fuddie-duddie (fun note: spellcheck wanted to make that fudge-duddie) I’ll confess that I was uncomfortable with the singular they for a long time, and it still doesn’t trip off my tongue. But I’m pleased that our culture is moving toward accepting people where they are, and there are lots of people for whom the gendered pronouns he and she are just uncomfortable. No one should have to be made uncomfortable by the language with which they and others talk about themselves. So hooray for they and its increasingly accepted singular meaning.

But how about that Post Office?

As pleased as I am by Merriam-Webster, I’m disappointed today by the U.S. Post, which returned one of my Christmas cards because it had the wrong address—even though the Post Office knew the forwarding address for the person I was trying to reach.

I understand that rules are rules, and I wouldn’t want the Post Office to have to promise to continue forwarding anyone’s mail for all eternity. But when the person has only moved across town, and postal workers can identify the correct forwarding address in order to provide it to me on the envelope, then couldn’t they just send the letter on to the correct destination, rather than return it to me halfway across the country?

• It would be a better service to both me and the friend who will now wait an extra week for that late Christmas card.
• It would have a smaller environmental footprint.

It’s really the second point that saddens me most. I’m trying to reduce my environmental footprint in a whole lot of ways, and it would have been nice if my government hadn’t worked at cross-purposes with me on this.

Ah, well. It’s but one small complaint among many I have with my current federal government, and I still prefer having government-run mail to having this service privatized. I’ll complain about Amtrak, too, all the while knowing that the problem is years and years of under-funding rather than any inherent devaluing of public transportation.

On a happier note…

Rather than end with a complaint, I’ll choose, as one of my friends consciously does every day, to close in gratitude.

My son texted last week with the surprise news that he has completed a master’s degree. This wasn’t in itself unexpected; he’s in a doctoral program, and the master’s is an expected way station. But he had thought he had more coursework to complete for it, and that turns out not to be the case. He’s attending a public university, and I’m grateful that it has the funding to provide his full-tuition funding along with a stipend for research work.

Again, hooray for public institutions. Speaking of which, my library had just the book I was looking for when I realized yesterday that I wanted it. I’m always grateful for public libraries. Also librarians.