Silent Spring

Have you noticed that this spring the "dawn chorus" of birdsong is underwhelming?

May update: more reports.

The sun is shining, the robins and Steller's jays are nesting, the insects are making a racket, but it seems the songbirds are out to lunch.

perhaps this is why the insects are making a racket.

(and honeybees seem to be sparse this year too, in my yard at least, which had me wondering if Colony Collapse Disorder had hit Nevada County. But the neighborhood beekeeper says no, hers are fine, and county honeybee expert Randy Oliver reports that to his knowledge C.C.D. is not here.)

for a final fauna report, your correspondent's first black widow spider sighting of 2007: a mere infant, still gray, with very, very long front legs.