The following is from an email I recently received from Elmon Nicole of White Sands:

f you read this column last week, you will remember that a reader wrote in to report seeing a bird that was suspected of being a Summer Tanager. I contacted David Seeler, an authority on reports of bird sightings here on PEI and he was inclined to believe that the identification of the bird was correct, going by the picture sent along.
But the story doesn’t end there. Yesterday I had a call from a Montague reader, Marion MacDonald who to her delight had a bird at her feeder that matched exactly the description of the one spotted last week. Here’s a bird likely to show up here less than 10 times in 100 years. What are the chances that two are on the go the same week in May 2012? If you do the math, I’d say that the chances are better that the bird seen on the Toronto Road made its way to Montague, possibly en route to more familiar territory than PEI.

The following is a letter I received from Garden Gate reader Carol Hicken, of Brooklyn:

“After reading your piece in The Graphic today, I had to drop a line and tell you I have had a lot of purple finches (male and female) in the past month. Also a lot of American goldfinches, evening grosbeaks (which I have not had for awhile), six red-winged blackbirds, some blue jays, chickadees, juncos, mourning doves, and some woodpeckers (both hairy and downy). Had quite a few grackles for awhile but not as many now. Four crows too many but I guess they have to eat too.
I started putting water out for them in the fountain again. I feed a mix of seed plus sunflower seed, and suet for the woodpeckers. I live in a very sheltered area with lots of trees for them to rest, nest and hide in.”

Last week we took a look at growing asparagus. This week we’ll consider how to get the best mileage out of a strawberry patch.
If strawberries were planted in May and harvested in August, there might be more berry patches in our backyards. It’s the waiting that throws many of us off because June-bearing berries, as our conventional varieties are called, are planted this spring and we look for a harvest next summer. There are several day-neutral varieties out there now that are planted in the spring and will produce later that same season. They can be kept over for a second year but with each passing season, production declines significantly. Some commercial growers only keep these for a single season.

The following is an email that I received recently from Kevin and Bonnie Cook: “Just thought I’d advise you that we are a relatively new Island nursery that carries the cheapest and most magnolias, Japanese maples etc. We specialize in rare and unusual but much sought after species. We carry the largest Japanese and magnolia selection in Canada. We sell online and are now open to the public. Check out our website or visit.” Their website is www.thehoneytreenursery.com and their address is 24202 Highway 2, Norboro, PEI.

Spring has sprung and what are we enjoying these days in our gardens, our roadsides, along the creeks and in the meadows? Crocuses have been blooming for ages and the dear little flowers don’t get discouraged easily, do they? Late winter snowfalls don`t seem to rattle them at all. How do your tulips look? I have to accept the reality that our clay soils in Ebenezer are hard on tulips. Not a sign of any of the ones that I planted last fall.
Forsythias are a great source of early spring color. It is a flowering shrub whose sunny yellow flowers brighten our yards before its leaves appear. The rest of the season, it’s just there, green and lacking in drama.

You may remember that last week I asked for any readers who had seen a pileated woodpecker to send me a line. The following is taken from an email I received this week from Sharon Belong of Hopefield, which is not far from Murray River: “My yard faces north and although the yard is open, it is small and surrounded by trees. My feeders include two suet feeders in a lilac tree directly off my front deck and one finch feeder and two gazebo-like feeders hanging off my roof which overhangs my front deck. Very simple I know, but wow, the birds are all over it.

Time for those April showers that bring Mayflowers. And by the way, where did that expression of fact originate anyway? The website feeling sandflowers.com tells us it goes back as far as the mid 1500s and maybe even further. In 1557, Thomas Tusser put together a collection of writings he called “A Hundred Good Points of Husbandry” and in the section on April he wrote “Sweet April showers/Do bring Mayflowers.”
It will soon be time for pleasant springtime strolls in the woods. Most of us at some point in time have enjoyed listening to the birds as they chirp and sing, getting nests built and finding bugs for dinner. Then there’s the snap of dry branches underfoot and the rustle of dead leaves. But how many of you have heard pine cones popping? Certainly not me. I spoke with someone in Ontario last week who has recently witnessed this interesting phenomenon. So, more than cereal can do the “crackle and pop” thing.

A Garden Gate reader from Clinton sent photos this week of a red-bellied woodpecker that had been visiting their feeders for two weeks. The red bellied woodpecker is an occasional bird here in winter and spring, not recorded in summer and accidental in autumn according to the PEI Field Checklist of Birds. The website www.allaboutbirds.org provided us with some interesting facts about this bird.

Monday, March 12 - A beautiful sound stopped me in my tracks. It was my friend the red-winged black bird back at my feeders for the first time this year. I love the sound those charming birds make but it’s a sparkling, tinkling sound, not to my ear anything like the description given in Peterson’s Field Guide. I don’t suppose it’s impossible for there to be regional variations in the sounds birds of a species make. But I expect it’s more likely there are variations in how we humans interpret the sounds.