We interrupt our tour of magical Kensington to announce that spring has officially arrived here in Southeastern Michigan. OK, it’s 30 degrees out with a stiff wind and snow lightly falling.

But it’s spring. Trust me on this.

Wait. That’s the wrong image. One moment please…

…try now…

What? You don’t see anything? How about now?

Well yes, that IS a goldfinch who MIGHT have a yellow feather showing, but no, what about the big black blob? What do you see?

Maybe this is better?

Yes! It is indeed our very first red-winged blackbird scout of the season! Give that bird a gold medal, he’s arrived early and the weather is clearly not in his favor. In fact we had a hail storm only two days ago. I hope he managed to avoid it.

I saw him for the first time on Thursday (day before yesterday), but I was on the phone and not close to my camera. I got a very poor image of him with the phone. But I shared it extensively with my bird friends here. Almost all of them had seen one in their yards that day too!

Yesterday (Friday) he stopped by again. The images in this post are from Friday’s visit.

I had filled all six feeders for him in the hopes he’d eat something. It was a very windy day and he was very hesitant. He slowly worked his way out from the safety of the middle of the beech tree, watching all the other birds eating. Clearly he was interested.

And then he made his move.

I hope he’s here to stay. I haven’t even heard the distinctive red-winged blackbird call yet. But I hope he starts calling in all of his friends so we know he is more than a fluke!

And I’m glad we were able to give him some food and water if he’s headed further north. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see if he stops by again.

Happy Spring everybody!

Edit: He’s here right now, eating at the flat feeder! So maybe he’s really going to stick around!