Around The Farm In April

The chickens began going outside every day in April. They are hardy little birds who love being outdoors:

And they sure can cover some ground:

The dogs watch them with great interest. After a few near catastrophes, I no longer trust the dogs with the chickens and keep them on opposite sides of the fence:

The pigeons are much less concerned with their freedom and seem to think it's too cold outside most of the time for them to be bothered with going out:

But every once in a while, a few fly up to the top of the barn. That's quite a feat for fantail pigeons, who are not good flyers:

 

And sometimes they walk around on the metal roof of the milk room, their little toenails clicking as if they are tap dancing:

As the weather improved and the days lengthened, everything began looking brighter:

The Tree Sparrows all disappeared, headed for the their nesting sites up north. But these little mystery sparrows returned. I've long suspected they were Song Sparrows but they were elusive and their songs so varied that it was hard to know for sure. Finally I got these two photos and decided that they were indeed Song Sparrows:

We of course had a number of  spring snowfalls:

But the chickens went out anyway, leaving footprints in the snow:

And they headed straight for the bird feeders, where they knew they'd find dropped seeds to eat:

And we seemed to be having lots of rain. I knew for sure it was a wet springtime when I saw these two Mallards, enjoying the water in the middle of a hay field: