SPRING THINGS: Some say it’s the robin. Others, geese or
red-winged blackbirds. But it’s really all about the buzzards,
isn’t it?

Charles Frederick on Big Shanty Road phoned Monday and let a
reporter hear this noisy sound of spring – the turkey vultures had
returned from their annual migration.

In previous years, we’ve heard from our friends in Westline
about the returning buzzards which arrive there without fail on
March 15.

Interestingly, CBS Sunday Morning did a segment this past Sunday
on the turkey vultures who return each March 15 to a village in
Ohio and are greeted by community-wide festivities. Good idea for
Westline, too.

Our bird book notes that these buzzards which are large (and,
dare we say, homely?) birds often gather in large roosts at night.
Now that would be scary.

Another spring sighting comes from Tim and Grace Cobb of Willow
Creek who saw a black bear on Saturday just above Marilla and
obviously just coming out of hibernation.

We also heard from Alvin Van Horn who wrote this past Saturday:
“Spring is here. Crocuses are up down here in good ole Austin.” We
probably have crocuses in Bradford, too – but they’re buried under
the snow!

NOT SO FAST: Speaking of spring (today is the first day, of
course) we got this note from Lolita Norris of Columbus, Ohio,
about a poem we ran about this uncertain season: “Loved the poem
but tell the poet not to hold his breath yet. I have seen snow in
June in Bradford and as early as October. My dad, Warren Colley Jr.
had a good description of Bradford winters: ‘Nine months of winter
and the rest just darn bad weather!’ He was born and raised
there.”

“I laugh here in Columbus about the schools getting closed at
the first snowflake. I have waited for the bus on Interstate
Parkway that never came. My mother would have to yell down to the
bunch of us waiting in the Farrell Dairy driveway and tell us there
was no school.

“That is, if we could hear her, because it had to be one doozie
of a storm to keep the school buses from running. Our bus driver
for the longest time was Norm Rathfon, the Fire Chief. Hope the
spelling is right after all these years, but I know we loved him
anyway.”