Some spring indicators are sure as robins, but less well known
Even if the thermometer doesn鈥檛 read 79 again for weeks, as it did on Tuesday, reliable hints of spring are all around. Some are less obvious or widely known than robins on the lawn but are no less reliable signs.
One sign is as predictable as clockwork, immune from influence by whatever weather happens here on Earth. Go out on a clear night (none are predicted soon) and look generally northward. When you find the Big Dipper, notice that the 鈥渉andle鈥� points downward now toward the horizon, as it always does in winter.
But as spring approaches, the handle will gradually rise and the Dipper鈥檚 vessel will invert, appearing as if it would pour its contents earthward. Many ancient cultures, who watched the night sky more closely than we today, associated the Dipper鈥檚 inversion with springtime rain. So, if the weather turns cold again, and snow piles up, just watch the Big Dipper turn upside down for reassurance that winter is waning.
Tuesday, Feb. 20, on a narrow strip of muddy silt along the highest headwaters of Big Sandy Creek, I saw skunk cabbage blooming. The fleshy, purplish hood that protects the actual flowers looked unsure and timid and was still small鈥揳bout the size of a golf ball鈥揵ut was venturing forth nonetheless. Skunk cabbage is the earliest emerging plant I know of in our region, and it always grows in damp muddy flats along floodplains. If it stays mild, that golf ball-size growth will expand to the size of a softball and will crowd next to dozens more of its kind. If you break off a piece of the thick leathery hood and sniff it, you will know how the plant acquired its name.
Wild turkeys have it rough in winter and they鈥檝e been acting like they know things are changing. Mature gobblers now follow along behind the flocks of hens in full display, their tails fanned, feathers puffed and the skin on their naked heads engorged with blood and flaming red. In the morning the toms have been gobbling as you expect them to do in early April. My little granddaughter and I encountered a flock of strutting gobblers on a short walk in the woods and the birds were reluctant to leave. They had felt that February sun and did not want to interrupt their ritual. Reluctantly, they paced off a few steps, then fanned out again, hoping to attract any hens so afflicted with the fervor of spring.
Gray squirrels have begun to exhibit signs that you might not recognize as spring indications. If you see three or four chasing through the treetops, as they鈥檝e been doing around my place, you鈥檙e observing males competing for the attention of one female. Squirrels have two litters each year, one in early spring and one in late summer. Courtship for the spring litter is underway now, and conflict often erupts among rival males. Each male is promiscuous, mating with as many females as he can. Females bear two to four naked 鈥減ups鈥� 40 to 45 days after the union. So, there could be litters of little squirrels in the woods, concealed in hollow-tree dens, by the end of March. That鈥檚 early, but so are this year鈥檚 chases.
Linked, in a way, to the squirrel chasing are the varied calls of barred owls on recent evenings. Owls court, breed and nest in late winter, much earlier than other birds so lots of easy prey will be available when its time to feed their hatchlings later on.
Barred owls form long-time pairs and the couple calls to one another now to re-forge their bond. But, at this time of year, don鈥檛 expect the sedate 鈥淲hooo, whooo鈥� of cartoons and commercials.
Courting barred owls hoot, caw, gurgle and 鈥渓augh,鈥� and they keep it up for sustained sessions. The cacophony can be so strange that people unfamiliar with barred owl courting vocabulary might think they鈥檇 stumbled into a troop of translocated monkeys. The point of it all is to hatch their brood just as those young squirrels, rabbits and mice are scampering about and vulnerable. That may seem harsh but these wild things 鈥渨orked it out鈥� among themselves long ago, and it still works.
Just before we bumped that flock of turkeys, my granddaughter and I also examined the temporary seasonal pond that generally forms in the wet woods every spring. I thought the wood frogs might have already assembled there in their annual collective reveling, but the pond was silent and still.
Another warm night or two will bring them out of the woods from all directions, quacking out their duck-like calls and clambering over one another in reproductive exuberance. The wood frog spectacle is like one of those exotic National Geographic nature shows filmed in a faraway place, but it happens right here, every spring without fail.
Get outdoors now and watch for the seasonal signs, the more you learn to recognize, the more you hear and see.