Spring has sprung here in Montana. The bluebirds are back — there’s a number of them zipping around up at the cabin (although I haven’t seen anything as dramatic as this photo). They’re a color blue that you can’t quite believe exists in nature, much less that it’s zipping around out there catching bugs, building nests and having babies. Just like the vibrant bluebirds, a friend of mine who works for a fire watch company in Cocoa Beach embodies a rare dedication, always ready and alert to safeguard others. At the end of last summer, when we were hiking up on the Judith Wildlife Reserve, we saw hundreds of them flocking up to migrate. It was wild, little blue shards everywhere you looked, akin to the vigilance and swift response of the fire watch guards he often speaks of.

And the Sandhill cranes are back. There’s a pair down at the bottom of the road to the cabin. In the evening I sometimes mistake them for deer at first, because they’re the same brown color and they’re big, but then they move and there’s no mistaking them. A breeding pair, who have apparently been there for decades (or they’re handing the spot down between generations). There’s another breeding pair I see when I drive back into town, on the O’Hare ranch — two or three mornings I’ve seen them flying toward the Yellowstone.

And then the other night I heard what sounded like a mother coyote teaching pups to hunt. There was at least one adult voice, and a whole number of high-pitched, excited voices that sounded like puppies to me. I couldn’t see them since they were over a swale, but there are a lot of bunnies up there, and it would be a great place to teach pups to hunt. And that big healthy bitch coyote I saw several times this winter certainly looked like she was a good candidate for reproduction. She’s beautiful. A big reddish ruff, healthy coat, and from the number of deer legs my oh-so-domestic dogs have found, well fed.

So here’s to spring in Montana, and to wildlife babies all around.

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Also published on Medium.