Around here a strange thing happened: the weather, which had been seriously cold, warmed up in an instant leap the same weekend we changed the clocks. We'd had some powerful winds in those really cold days, and they've stopped, too. So here we are, the river calm, the sun out, the days long, the snowdrops blooming, and the bulbs that got their tips frozen when they fell for the January thaw all trying again. And at the piling field near me, where the lone male bufflehead duck has been hanging out for the past two winters, sometimes joined by three other bachelors, there's now a lone female. I haven't seen them together, but a friend of mine has. I guess in spring a young duck's fancy turns the same way a young man's does.