At long, long last an end to this wearying winter. Spring has finally made her tardily shy entrance, though she is about a month late. Our lawns are now mostly free of ice and snow, and though there remain large areas in our neighbourhood forested ravine that are thick yet with ice and snow, on the flat areas the snow has gone, though the trails have yet to be freed entirely from ice.

In the past week we've heard and seen formations of Canada geese returning to our Northern climate. The past few days have been glorious, with ample sun and relatively mild temperatures hovering around ten degrees. Last night it was delightfully above freezing, though not yet mild enough to sleep with the windows open. But when that time arrives we will hear the early morning spring songs of the song sparrow, the cardinal and the robin, urging us to rise from our beds.

Yesterday we saw a tiny chipping sparrow at our bird feeder, for the first time. Also at the feeder were redpolls, those delightful tiny birds with red caps that we used to see so often in the earlier neighbourhood we lived in. Descending the long hill into the ravine for our daily walk a few days back we noticed that the bees that make their home in the large old pine at its foot, before the trail verges off in either direction, were out and looking for pollen. We can only surmise they have enough honey stored in the chamber they use in the trunk of that tree to help them survive over the interim after their long winter hibernation.

We saw, for the first time this spring, returning goldfinches, beautiful bright yellow birds with a tantalizingly lilting song.

The ravine doesn't present, at this time of year at its best; there are areas that look downright dismal, badly in need of the softening velvet tones of new-grown foliage. The creek is swollen with muddy run-off from the continually melting snow and ice. We can see the beginning of new buds on the maples and poplars. Hawthorn will take a long time, and so will oak and ironwood before they begin to evidence signs of spring renewal. We've already noted that some of the ash trees are dying, thanks to the pervasive presence of the tree-killing emerald ash borer.

We've been alert, the past week, to the first signs of the first butterfly to appear in the spring, the Mourning Cloaks. And today, in one of the two areas in the ravine where they tend to appear, there were two, performing an arabesque, winding in the air around one another, a fascinating twirl of butterfly courtship.