Thin clouds yesterday and today, but warm and dry dry dry. Three days ago I saw the remains of a pile of snow from the last big storm -- even after all that rain, yes -- but it's gone now. Yesterday by the river the four small trees on the white tent pier had burst into green fuzz, but they were it for green. Today the eight bigger trees there have joined them, not even fuzz yet, just haze, but you know what's coming.

The river's lower, still rain-swollen but gradually getting back to normal. Today it smelled of the salty ocean, something that happens sometimes when the tide's coming in, but not always. All kinds of junk, swept in during the storms, is floating up and down the river: tennis balls, plastic garbage that'll be floating until 2210, tree branches, twigs and leaves. Four big planks drifted past me side by side as though they were contemplating getting together later and making a raft.

When I got to the river a pair of mallards were (was? it's a pair, after all) sleeping on a pair of pilings. These are the locals, who spent the winter here, and have now been rewarded: they've no doubt got their nesting site already picked out and will be defending it against all those returning chicken ducks who went south. A male bufflehead dove for fish again and again out at the end of the piling field. For the last couple of days there's been a pair out there; I don't know if this is the male of that pair, or a different male, but I'm surprised to see him still here, whoever he is. It's much too warm now for buffleheads; he must be anxious to get back to the comfy arctic. There were Canada geese and Brants down there, too, and a cardinal cheeping his little head off in a fir tree. The sparrows and grackles are landing to feed on the tops of the pilings with birdie glee. The moss up there is their favorite stuff, and between the rain and the height of the river, for almost two weeks they haven't been able to get at it.