![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BloodrootBudonNaturalCrooksDotCom.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMy best, albeit uneducated, guess is that this is a Bloodroot bud. It was the only wild flower I found during a fairly careful search of the maple woodlot at Bronte Creek. You can see a few Trout Lily leaves are up though most are still just dark red spikes not even unfurled yet. Not even a dandelion was in bloom! Luckily, I did spot a splash of summer yellow nearby.<\/p>\n
Meadowlarks Sing for Spring at Bronte Creek Provincial Park<\/h2>\n
The usual winter suspects were flying around Bronte Creek during my walk: Hairy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Nuthatches, and Chickadees. Some early migrants were out too: Blue Jays, Golden-crowned Kinglets, Robins, Song Sparrows, and Turkey Vultures. An Eastern Phoebe was singing near the farm house.<\/p>\n
And over at the field near the silo, an Eastern Meadowlark was singing! Bronte park is trying to help these beautiful grassland birds survive, so they usually have several fallow or hay fields they leave unmowed until after the nestlings have safely fledged.<\/p>\n I watched for almost ten minutes while this one male Meadowlark flew from tree top to tree around part of the perimeter of two of the fields.<\/p>\n It was always quite distant but it’s lilting fluting song carried clearly.<\/p>\n At one point, a second bird flew up into a tree beside the male. They both stayed in the tree for a minute then the male continued on his singing sentry duty and the other vanished. If it was a female, it probably just dropped down to the grassy meadow below to feed. If it was another male, it did not sing.<\/p>\n Personally, I hope it was a female. It would be nice if his solos had attracted the interest of more than just a wandering photographer!<\/p>\n As I headed for home, I noticed a small flock of sparrows enjoying the willows and dogwoods along a small runoff stream.<\/p>\n These American Tree Sparrows will soon be on their way back north. I was happy to see them before they wing away.<\/p>\n Related Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Meadowlarks are back and singing so it is spring, whether it’s snowing or not! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[216,839,381,481],"class_list":["post-9510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focus","tag-american-tree-sparrow","tag-bloodroot","tag-bronte-creek-provincial-park","tag-eastern-meadowlark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9510"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9525,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510\/revisions\/9525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nLast Chance to See the Winter Birds<\/h2>\n
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