As I write, the river’s way "up" and fresh chunks of ice circle the Narrowsburg Eddy, thanks to 1.6 inches of cold rain on Saturday (3/11). The ice has been jostled loose from river terraces and floodplain islands.

According to my calendar, the last 70-degree day I’d recorded was on November 1, 1999, a day before sending two dozen late hatching Monarch butterflies to Florida (with friends), and bidding a last hurrah to "summer."

GOOSE MUSIC: The breath of spring last week also stirred the breasts of Canada geese. During just one hour on the morning of 3/7 ten long skeins of geese flew up the Delaware River: some in V’s, but others in ragged lines that straightened, or melded into clumps. A last big V passed over the Narrowsburg Eddy about supper time.

It was hard to compute the numbers of geese. Some V’s contained about 75 to 150 birds, but a few linear formations doubled those numbers.

Taking 150 birds as a conservative average, and multiplying by the 25 formations I recorded (during three hours outdoors over three days), I estimate that I observed close to 3,500 Canada geese. All the birds, including a couple of skeins that flew further inland, were within sight of the Delaware River and must have been using it as a navigational guide.

"One swallow does not make a summer," wrote the great wildlife biologist Aldo Leopold, "but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw is the spring."

Last March I printed that paragraph by Leopold, and a companion one that is worth repeating. "A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges."

FIRST FOX SPARROWS: The morning of March 10 brought two of these large, rusty colored sparrows, which showed up to bathe in a puddle and scratch for millet seed. I was amazed, in checking my notes, to discover that a pair of like-minded fox sparrows had arrived on March 11, two years ago.

The fox is our largest eastern sparrow, but we have just a week or two to enjoy its company. By April 1 most of the population will have arrived at breeding grounds around Hudson’s Bay in northern Canada, and as far northeast as Newfoundland.

Look for a large sparrow with a rusty tail and a heavily streaked breast, which scratches vigorously in the grass and leaf litter with both feet. Violent bursts of scratching are its signature. If you spot a "fox," don’t expect it to stay around. A few minutes in the yard may be its limit.

But that’s still a treat—I’m tempted to say "honor"—for those of us who await, each March, these alert, beautiful birds.

NARROWSBURG EDDY: Recent high water has limited duck stopovers, but a few migrants are uncommon enough to note. On March 5 and 6, I observed a species of diving duck, a greater scaup, swimming above the Narrowsburg Bridge. It’s the first of its species I’ve ever seen here.

The evening of March 8 brought a male and female bufflehead to dive for fish and crustaceans. Like the scaup, these small ducks are headed for Alaska and northwest Canada.

CROCUSES: (again) Last week I noted that a little patch of crocuses had pushed through the soil near our frog pond, but that the flowers hadn’t opened. Two days later (3/8) a couple of blossoms appeared, and by the following afternoon two dozen flowers had popped out and opened.

The name crocus, as I noted, is derived from Hebrew and Arabic words for saffron. That’s because one species—now called Crocus sativus—was used by these ancient cultures to produce valuable saffron dyes and food seasonings.

It tickled me to find the following sales pitch in a just arrived seed catalogue: "Crocus sativa. The brilliant orange-red stigmas of this violet colored flower are the source of rare (and expensive) culinary saffron… We provide complete growing and harvest instructions."