You, like me, have probably walked the same routes near home many times in the past weeks. Maybe you have noticed plants leafing out and blooming, insects starting to appear, and birds. The greatest variety of birds can be seen and heard in May, especially this year with less sound pollution.

Take some time to look and listen closely. Woodpeckers are drilling nest holes into trees, drumming to announce their territories and feasting on insects with their long sticky tongues.

Chickadee evacuating a nestBlack-capped Chickadees, the Massachusetts state bird, are pairing up and excavating nest cavities in rotten saplings like birches.Their tiny bills can only pluck soft rotten wood to make a hole. Canada goose goslings have already hatched and follow their parents around. Their loud honking is unmistakable. Some of the most remarkable songsters are migrant birds returning from their winter grounds – warblers, many heading north to nest – thrushes, like wood thrush and veery with haunting flute-like songs.