The heaviest of the bird feeders was yanked off the limb by a raccoon last night, and this morning it rests on the ground like Gulliver surrounded by Lilliputians.

All around its cylindrical body, the

backyard creatures nibble and peck at the sunflower seeds spilled from its crevices: squirrels chasing each other for morsels, blue jays swooping down in their greedy fashion, our familiar chipmunk aroused from his bed under the deck, sparrows and chickadees, finches and titmice, feasting and flitting and flying with great excitement.

Spring has come early to our neck of the woods, and the ground is yielding sprouts of green that in past Aprils have been covered with snow. Jon-quils and crocus herald the arrival of an early season, and there are buds on the lilac and forsythia.

There is some dead wood on the rose bushes but enough red showing through on the stalks to signify a fine promise ahead. The clematis vines climbing the lattice look fragile, though intact. A close inspection of the hydrangeas produces green underneath their skin.

It never ceases to be miraculous to me that I can lift away boughs of evergreens to un-cover tender green delphinium and phlox. And, how could the buds on rhododendron have withstood the winter, however mild? How did the tall pines remain erect in howling winds that lashed the coast in gale force? How is it that moss, though frozen during winter, stays green? How can it be so dark and now, so light?

These are mysteries I ponder each spring when the sunshine is a brighter white than sheets on the clothesline and the sky is bluer than a baby’s eyes.

The mourning doves seem to welcome the change in season, their heads bobbing as they saunter around the yard.

They coo in rhythmic cycles, not unlike the distant whistles from the road construction crews downtown, warning motorists of blasting rock. One, two, three coos or whistles, then a flutter of wings or the muffled sound of dynamite.

Spring sounds: the tapping of the woodpecker in the trunk of the spruce; spring smells: the fresh air – clean as mint – wafting in through a partially open window in the bedroom; spring shadows through the trees in the glen down by the stream; spring sunsets of pinks and lavenders that paint the mountain in soft watercolors.

The white birches and pop-lars are naked, leafless; there are no red buds yet on the ma-ples.

The discarded Christmas wreaths, propped against the woodshed, have dried and turned rusty-brown, the fra-grance of fir stronger still. Yet, there’s the sense of renewal, of rebirth.

It’s early spring in Down East Maine. The clocks have sprung ahead. And there’s a certain spring in the footsteps of everyone we meet.