Well, we turned the calendar page to April.

It certainly was a long time comin’ wasn’t it?

But … it is a positive step in the right direction as to warmer temps and a “real” Spring.  Of course, I would be lion if I said we whisked out of the month of March like a lamb as that old adage goes “in like a lion, out like a lamb”, but that old line didn’t work out so great this year.

Speaking of steps in the right direction, I headed out this morning keen on getting four miles done to commemorate “National Walking Day”, which always falls on the first Wednesday in April.  I wasn’t sure I’d be walking since last night the weather folks said potential freezing fog or black ice might be lingering because of the several inches of snow we got yesterday.  But, I peered out before lacing up my shoes and that snow was “long gone” as the late Ernie Harwell used to say.  Poof!  It was like that snow never happened.  Now, that’s my kind of snowfall.  And, it was 33 degrees out so no ice, which was nice, because … after all, who wants to wipe out on the sidewalk on April Fool’s Day?

In the early morning today something peculiar happened.  I was startled out of a dead sleep to a songfest, reminiscent of a sunny Summer morning.  And, no – it wasn’t Buddy serenading me.  And, no – I wasn’t dreaming.  It wasn’t a full moon, but perhaps the big light in the yard behind me caused the sparrows to gather on the window ledge just behind my head.  They were joyous judging from the chorus, and, believe me –  it wasn’t just the occasional tweet or chirp either.  Until I fully opened my eyes and saw it was still pitch dark, I thought I might have overslept.  I reached over to grab the clock and pull it up close to see what time it was, and it was straight up 5:00 o’clock.  I soon fell back to sleep listening to this sweet symphony, but not before I made a mental note to search online for sparrows singing in the dark, because silly me – I thought that all our feathered friends slept in the dark, huddled together on a branch or a wire, their head tucked under a wing.

When I got online later, I Googled (wondering for the gazillionth time what we did without Google and didn’t have ready access to an encyclopedia).  I discovered someone else, besides me, had asked the question “are sparrows nocturnal?”  Someone else had their sleep interrupted I suppose.  I found out that sparrows migrate at night and also like to come out in the dark to look for food.  Nice!  Please don’t make the ledge behind my window your all night café!

I added four miles to my total today, leaving only about 450 more miles to supersede last year’s goal.  I’d better get crackin’.