How you know winter is over on Sanibel Island: A little bird tells us!

It is easy in some areas of the USA to know winter is gone, Spring is here and Summer is not far behind.

Trees begin budding.

Flowers pop up from the ground.

Snow melts, ice disappears, temperatures rise by 40 degrees and every one looks happy.

Since everyone looks happy on Sanibel the whole year through, the heralding of Spring and Summer is infinitely more subtle.

We have no ice and snow, flowers bloom year round, the trees are always green and temperature adjustment between the end of winter and beginning of Spring is better measured in the rise of humidity rather than the uptick in heat.  The difference on the thermometer is minuscule.

But we do have a warmer Gulf of Mexico for swimming and the heat in the pools can be turned off.

Best of all for those of us who love birding, we begin to see some of our fine feathered friends who make only rare appearances in winter, or no appearances at all.  

Though the Island is a wonderful winter haven for migratory birds and some, like the White Pelican, only appear in the colder months, other birds, particularly the smaller and special song birds, are sure signs that Spring is here.

The Black Whiskered Vireo, for one,  never makes a winter appearance but is common in late Spring and all through summer.  The Black-whiskered Vireo is a small passerine bird which breeds in southern Florida, the West Indies, and some offshore Venezuelan islands.    Black-whiskered Vireos are partial migrants, with the northernmost populations moving to Greater Antilles, northern South America and Costa Rica in winter months.

So the Vireo is a welcome sight as we know that Spring is here when we see them.

Another welcome sight is the Yellow Warbler.  Like the Vireo, the Yellow Warbler does not make an appearance on Sanibel in December , January or February.  The pretty little thing makes a rare appearance in March, then is commonly seen in April and May.  The Yellow Warbler is easy to spot, though.  It's tiny body is a bright yellow and its song drips with honey.  In fact, the song is so melodic and endearing, that a group of Yellow Warblers are called a "sweetness" of Warblers.

Appropriately, the Summer Tanager, whose name translated means small red bird, is not to be seen in Winter.  But this beautiful bird is a common sight in Spring, as is his equally brilliant friend, the Scarlet Tanager.  The Scarlet Tanager is distinguished from the Summer Tanager by it's black wings, and is a welcome sight because it feeds on gypsy moths, never a guest that Sanibel or any area wants to have. Scarlet Tanagers have been recorded eating over 2,000 gypsy moth caterpillars in an hour. That's quite an appetite for one little bird.

There are many birds on Sanibel in Spring and Summer that are not observed in Winter.

So when we say we know Winter has gone away because a little bird told us, we are absolutely serious.