Every Spring as birds begin to come back from their winter adventures I can't help but get excited. It's ridiculous. I can't possibly contain it in words, but when I saw my first flock of Swallows at Quail Creek Reservoir this weekend, I might as well have just gotten a direct shot of endorphins to the brain (I'm sure I did). It's pure magic that these birds were far away, out of sight for months and are now back. To me, the thrill of birding encompasses the story that surrounds them. I don't know where they've been, I don't know where they'll end up, but in that moment I'm a witness to something amazing. This is what keeps me coming back for more. It's crazy how one day you'll look at a tree and it's empty save a House Finch or two and the next it will be alive with more migrants than you can count.

May 7, 1852: The first summer yellowbirds on the willow causeway. The birds I have lately mentioned come not singly, as the earliest, but all at once, i.e. many yellowbirds all over town. Now I remember that the yellowbird comes when the willows begin to leave out. So yellow. They bring summer with them and the sun... - Henry David Thoreau