Spring has been frustratingly fickle so far this year, but I did manage to get out on one of the few warm, sunny days we’ve had in the last week.

I visited Maine Audubon’s property bordering the Penjajawoc Marsh in Bangor. The last time I had gone was in February, I think, and I was part of a group that snowshoed through the property. Although we saw many mammal signs and tracks, we didn’t see their makers at all; and there was hardly a chickadee in sight. A red-winged blackbird’s nest, attached to the base of some cattails, looked forlorn and tattered amid the starkness of the marsh in winter. Wistfully, I imagined what the place would look like come spring.

On this day, I didn’t have to imagine.

Wispy cirrus clouds stretched delicate tendrils across a powder-blue sky, and the air was fresh with the scent of growing things. As we started down the field toward the marsh, I heard a familiar high-pitched whistle above the woods that skirted the wetland. A broad-winged hawk soared into view; another hawk, higher than the first, also appeared. Both began circling, and the second hawk continued to voice its distinctive “pit-seeee,” call. I later found out this was a territorial display.

The birds continued to circle, moving back toward the forest canopy. Just before they disappeared from view, I saw one bird dive at the other, and wondered what the outcome would be. I didn’t expect to see them again; my experience with raptors has taught me that such sightings are brief and rare.

This is especially true of broad-winged hawks, at least during the breeding season. Within a week of their arrival in late spring, they begin to defend a territory and engage in courtship rituals. They are secretive around the nest and do not generally draw attention to themselves.

Lillian and Donald Stokes, in one of their volumes of “Bird Behavior,” say there are probably many of these hawks nesting in the vicinity of people that go unnoticed.

As we neared the marsh’s edge, we saw and heard two merlins within the shelter of the forest. They flew deeper into the woods as we approached, but were replaced with a northern flicker. The bird drew attention to itself with its “kek-kek-kek-kek-kek” call, then flew to the bole of a birch tree. Unconcerned with our nearness, it went about the serious business of inspecting a likely nest hole.

We continued on, following a woodland path that ran parallel to the marsh. Eventually we saw and heard a black and white warbler and a ruby-crowned kinglet; the voices of grackles and red-winged blackbirds were a fitting accompaniment.

The entire morning was made even more idyllic by two more sightings of broad-winged hawks. As before, two hawks were seen, one circling above the other and calling. I wondered if they were the same pair we had seen before. Overall, it was a great day of birding, and a perfect antidote for spring’s reluctant start.

Join me for a morning of birding at 7 a.m. at the Fields Pond Nature Center in Holden on Sunday, May 18. Call the Center at 989-2591 for more information and directions.

Chris Corio, a volunteer at Fields Pond Nature Center in Holden, can be reached at fieldspond@juno.com