Paler Shades of White

Here are my late white crocus, not to be confused with the early white crocus featured in a previous post. When the sun is shining, they open up and are quite breathtaking. On this cool and gloomy day, not so much--but any sign of spring is welcome round here.



A few days ago, my husband found this poor little white egg lying in our driveway.



A tree-climging rodent evidently raided a bird's nest, removed the egg, neatly gnawed off the top, and devoured the contents.

After using a well-thumbed bird book to identify the colour and characteristics of the eggs laid by every single type of bird frequenting our habitat, I concluded that this empty egg formerly contained an embryonic woodpecking type creature. Maybe the downy or the hairy woodpecker. We have a pair of each, and see them often. The male and female hairy woodpeckers, at this very moment, are making out and making bizarre sounds as they chase each other up and down and around a tree. Kinky foreplay! Quite fowl, actually.

Or, more likely, this might be the sapsucker's egg. Because so far, we've only seen the male, who constantly attacks our big hemlock (now grievously scarred.) The absence of a female would indicate she's sitting a nest in a tree hole somewhere. And maybe she left it just long enough for an evildoer to climb in.