Berkshire Spring Flora and Fauna

The Baltimore Oriole above last week announced his arrival from the American tropics with his clear piping whistle as he prowled for caterpillars and assorted bugs munching on the leaves of this flowering crabapple tree. A member of the blackbird family, this colorful bird and his mate will build a sock nest high in a birch or cottonwood tree.
In local meadows, bluets, aka Quaker ladies, aka cow-flop flowers, cluster in powder blue swaths among the grasses.