Vroom... Vroom...

It doesn't feel like spring--too cold--and it doesn't look like spring--the trees are still bare.  But it sounds like spring.  And the sounds of spring are guy sounds.

Open your windows on the first warm morning and you'll hear the noise of guys revving their engines.  Perhaps it is a mating ritual, but I am a woman, and can testify that I am not and never have been attracted by the sound of a revving engine, nor do I know any woman who is.  But every spring, right in synch with the first daffodils, there are the guys, on their motorcycles and in their cars, going vroom, vroom.

Animal guys are out there too, making their own noises.  There is the bluebird, alas, who for the third year in a row is nesting by our back porch and spends hours flinging himself feet-first against the window:

bang!
bang bang!
bang!
bang! bang! bang! (bis)

What is he thinking?  He's not mistaking his own reflection for a rival and trying to scare it away, because he bangs even when there is no reflection.  After three years of watching him, I can only conclude that he's making the bluebird equivalent of vroom, vroom, letting the world know that he's a guy.  The female hasn't been too much in evidence yet, though the banging has not prevented her in past years from laying her eggs.

It is preventing me, however, from enjoying the peace and quiet that I richly deserve after a day of sorting and packing my worldly goods.  Am I the only person in history to be irritated by a bluebird?  For a while I thought that I would miss his company after we move.  Now I think I'll be glad to say good-bye.

This morning we awoke to the sight of a turkey flock sauntering across the front field.  There were six or seven of them, looking sleek as crows.  But one of them, the guy, was swollen into a feathery sphere twice the size of the others.  In the chilly gray light he seemed to float just above the ground, carried along by the breeze like a balloon in a Thanksgiving parade.

Oozing authority, he was herding his harem towards the shelter of the woods.  The hens went along docilely enough, looking as though they were used to this sort of thing.  We were indoors and the dogs, who'd seen plenty of turkeys before but never one in full spring show-off mode, were barking so loudly they rattled the windows.  We couldn't hear the vocal accompaniments to the tom's display, but from the look of his plumage and his swagger, I could tell he was going vroom, vroom.