Osprey ( Pandion haliaetus ) have returned to the Bay to begin the spring season. The call of a laughing gull ( Leucophaeus atricilla ) sounds cheerful, as if reminding everything that warmer weather is on the way. Water oaks are beginning to burst into their pollen-heavy yellow flowers and neighbors are mulching their yards already fragrant from the blossoming of cultivated saucer magonlias (Magnolia x soulangeana). The orchestra of the impending hot summer is beginning to tune. Spring has started across the southern Chesapeake Bay. The Lafayette River on a balmy early spring evening. March 12, 2013. Colley Avenue bridge. (Click to enlarge)