Mayday, Mayday!

First of May, white rabbits, Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, big Communist rally day, big day for putting little baskets of flowers on neighbors' doorknobs in mythical days gone by, first day for a lot of natural events at Plainsboro Preserve today.

First really hot day, nearly 90 degrees, and the emergence of the first tree swallows, flocking about, mating busily on a tree near their box, probably the honeymoon suite. I observed one female wanton tree swallow mating with two different males in quick succession, tut tut, and other prim worker birds averting their gaze, busy bringing stuff to put in the box, supposedly there for the bluebirds, but often squatted in by tree swallows, for the start of a nest.

First blue skipper butterflies, woken up by the sun, on the first little wildflowers,



first little copper butterflies, first tiger swallowtail butterfly swooping about, first flicker feasting happily on the first insects to emerge from the trees down by beavers, and first unofficial groundhog,



pausing to pose on his doorstep before diving into his living room.

Emergence, too of these little flowers, chickweed maybe,



which if you pinch and sniff those little pillow things in England smells like fresh apples, but here smells like overrripe peaches. Different chemistry, I guess.

Emergence of first chainsaw as neighbor saws off large chunks of the wild cherry they share with us on the patio, but they mercifully left alone all the bits that were not banging on their bedroom windows at night scaring them.

I forbore to mention that they will now have hundreds of suckers in place of the branches sawn off at ground level, which will not grow tall, but will fill up a lot of the patio, thought it wiser to let them discover this in the fullness of time.