Bill Marchel: Birds and blooms — a colorful combo

Bill Marchel: Birds and blooms — a colorful combo

BRAINERD — For a brief period each spring, colorful songbirds gather. Some are migrating — en route northward — while others are busy staking out nesting territories. The males, of course, are singing, and flashing their vibrant breeding plumages, showing off to females, and warning other males to stay away. And it's all happening now. At the same time many species of trees and shrubs are in bloom including plum, June berry, lilac and crab apple…