Here in the sultry Republic of East Vancouver, the spring nesting season is underway–today for the first time I heard male Redwing Blackbirds singing on territory at Trout Lake.
El Niño is a wondrous thing. 
djm
Isn’t the classic el niño effect cool weather on the west coast & warmer weather in the east?
Here in Montréal I saw a dandelion blooming yesterday. Normally we don’t see any flowers here until late April.
I don’t know about “classical”, but El Niño on top of global warming has resulted in abnormally mild weather from coast to coast. It “should” be -5° to -10C° today, with about a foot or two of snow. Instead, we are getting highs in the double-digits and I need to cut my lawn.
djm
I swatted two mosquitos here last weekend. Today I saw the bloom of a hyacinth popping its head up. I hope when winter finally arrives that the plants survive it okay and the pests get hammered.
I’ve got crocus, daffodils and tulips starting to come up. This is way too early, but then our weather has been way too warm for this time of year. I’m not complaining, other than I bet our fruit trees, etc. will not bear much this year since they’ll probably break bud and then we’ll get a hard frost if not worse. The cold weather is supposed to hit us this week.
Darn! I thought this would be a hockey thread.
Yeah anyways, here in England I’ve not seen one… single… snowflake. None.
It did frost once or twice though, but that’s about it.
It’s really a pain here in Montreal, because every morning I’m not sure which jacket I’m going to wear. I got three: a rain jacket, an autumn jacket and my super Kanuk winter coat, which is totally useless under rain and too warm when it’s above -5. So these days here it could be raining, snowing, you could get an ice storm, etc. It’s a little bit crazy.
Are you talking about the redwings we get here in Britain in winter (Turdus iliacus)? They come down as winter visitors from Scandinavia, though there are small numbers breeding in Scotland too. Along with blackbirds and fieldfares they have spent the last two months demolishing the windfall apples at the bottom of my garden. If this mild winter continues there should be a good survival rate this year.
Nope, this is another family entirely, and confusingly enough they are called redwing blackbirds but are not at all related to your blackbirds, which are very closely related to our robins, which are not at all like your robins. 
Our redwings are Agelaius phoeniceus.
Just goes to show the truth of what we botanists have always said: Latin names are best! 
Here you go, Steve: red-winged blackbird. Named for the red epaulettes. I can’t remember if there are different subspecies east vs. west N.America. Its trill is one of the first signs of spring as it returns to swamps and marshes to build its nests in the cattails and reeds.
djm
That’s a good photo. If I’m not mistaken, redwings are Icterids.
(Checks–yes, they are). Here’s yours and here’s ours.
The males come north about three weeks earlier than the females (who look like slightly larger sparrows).
The sit upright on cattails and willow branches overlooking wetland*, and made a loud “skwaaa” sound to establish territory. for me, it’s a much more evocative (and reliable) sign of spring than the cliche ‘first robin’ (which is a thrush in north america).
*as the male in the wikipedia page is doing.
sign of spring than the cliche ‘first robin’ (which is a thrush in north america).
Ofcourse here it would be the swallow or the cuckoo announcing spring, there are flocks of robins around the birdfeeders outside the house all winter. But then again you could argue Ireland has something resembling a winter only every so many years.
Your blackbirds are in essence a black version of our robins; they are in the same genus and are very closely related. They look and behave remarkably similar although their songs are different. Our robins have long been considered a sign of spring, but they are “partial migrants,” meaning that some individuals stay behind all winter and others migrate. Even here in Montreal I often see robins in a normal cold winter. In Vermont I would see bluebirds and robins all winter long in the apple orchards. So the redwing is a more reliable harbinger of spring.
I was in Brittany over the holidays and was surprised to hear so many birds singing in the mornings (including European robins and blackbirds). Here we don’t usually hear birdsong until mid-January, when the chickadees and cardinals start singing as the days start getting noticeably longer. A few weeks after that the mourning doves start in, along with the house finches. There’s a tiny gland in a bird’s brain called the hypothalmus (I believe we have it too) that registers the length of daylight; once the day reaches a critical length (different for each species), it triggers the production of testosterone and the males start singing.
In humans, this mysterious substance is known as “Guiness.”
I talked to a couple from London the other day who had just returned from a vacation to Montreal. They were hoping to see a winter wonderland complete with snowball fights. They were more than a tad disappointed when they got off the plane dressed up like a HAZMAT team to discover a green and pretty mild city. For the best probably, they get to keep their illusions of a beautiful, romantic Eastern Canadian winter.
I actually kind of miss it… but it’s easy for me to say that, I doubt I’ll be shovelling my driveway in these parts this winter. My friends back home probably aren’t missing it as much.
Around Bude, the usual first welcome sign of spring is the return of the sand-martins, around March 7. Swallows come much later. Robins and dunnocks sing all winter, as do the immigrant song-thrushes. The best butcher in Bude is also the best bird-watcher. This week he spotted two chiff-chaffs by Bude Canal. Chiff-chaffs are migratory birds, so their tendency to stay over winter could be taken as another sign of climate change. A bit like those Maryland sunbathers depicted on the front page of The Guardian this morning. 
We have thick hedgerows around the house and the land so we have a lot of little birds. Coal tit, blue tit, Great tit, dunnocks, grey wagtails, pied wagtails, thrushes, warblers, goldcrests, plenty of robins, chaffinches, the odd siskin, bullfinches, a few greenfinches but not many and up to six goldfinches appear at the feeders at one time, scaring away all the other birds (until the magpies and the crows try to have a go that is). We used to have loads of Wrens but unfortunately they’re the first to go when there are cats around.
a few of the most common (and least shy) ones just outside the window a few minutes ago:
