First Day of Spring

Today's the Spring Equinox, and I love spring. I spent the day (as most days) outdoors, and saw some neat things. These included my first (of the year) Long-billed Curlews (Numenius americanus), large shorebirds that spend most of the year on the coast but nest in shrub-steppe habitat, and the nest of a pair of Horned Larks (Eremophila alpestris), a ground nest containing four eggs. But the pic I chose for the Spring Equinox blog photo is of the new leaves of a White-leafed Lupine (Lupinus leucophyllus) "springing up" through the skeletal remains of last year's stems.