lar and mar go to barrow

this is ken now...lar and mar were here last week. cheryl and gage left for chile saturday morning and lar and mar left for home in the evening...that means i'm here with the animals and the birds outside. in the week that lar and mar were here the snow melt was pretty dramatic. it really was the last three days of warm sunny weather that made the snow vanish..and the water appear. along with the water, the birds are here in full force. there are loads of geese and gulls around the house and even more snow buntings and lapland longspurs eating the birdseed. and i'd say that the disappearing snow has also brought the reappearance of lemmings as the owls have been dining near the house with some regularity again. out on the roads we were able to see some golden plovers and red necked phalaropes among other shore birds that our not so good identification eyes just labelled as birds. after the winter when the only things we see are the once in a while raven or owl, it's nice to have some others to see. oh we also got to see an american kestrel right outside the house that apparently has been terrorizing the snow buntings around town lately.