In my front yard, two snow drops and a lone brave crocus have pushed their way through the damp soil to proclaim the glaciers’ retreat. It’s as if the pendulum of the seasons is poised at the top of the upswing, in that moment when time stops, before the earth draws breath and real spring can start.
This is crunch time for most animals. The bounties of autumn are exhausted and the promise of spring stays just that. The Jamestown settlers called late winter/early spring the “starving time”, raiding Indian food caches and resorting to cannibalism for survival. New England Pilgrims suffered appalling losses before spring supply ships could arrive.
My backyard feeders are depleting at twice their usual rate. The skeleton crew of year-round birds is beginning to prepare for breeding and the species that winter here are trying to put on weight for the long trip north. I am seeing juncos for the first time this year and goldfinches have shown up as well. Goldfinches are becoming more yellow by the day as their drab winter plumage wears away. Males are calling, setting up territories and then trying to defend them against all comers. House finches, gather in rows at the feeder, the males glowing red with breeding passions. Social birds, house finches do not establish territories—females go with the reddest males.
We have had five species of woodpeckers coming to our feeders. They hang around at the suet cage, waiting their turn to gorge on the calorie-rich fat. Four wait—they all give way when the local pair of pileateds deigns to make an appearance. To their lordship’s credit, they usually work the backyard trees, leaving my humble offerings to the peasants. A pileated can bang its way through a moderate sized branch in a few minutes using its barbed harpoon-like tongue to lap up insects from their wood tunnels.
The silver maple in the corner of my yard is in flower, pumping out pollen to the breeze, and the red maple nearby is nearly ready to go. Elms downtown are yellowing windows and puddles with copious pollen. The catkins on the river birch at the end of the street are swelling and will be streaming pollen by the end of the week.
Yellow perch are spawning in tidal creeks, long ribbons of eggs tangling on submerged branches. Shad roe from the Carolinas in the grocery store, the gentleman manning the fish counter patiently answering the same questions he’s heard a hundred times already in the last week. “Sauté them with bacon and don’t overcook.” The fish are protected in the Chesapeake and no local roe is available when the Potomac shad make their spawning runs. Shad season has been pushed forward in the mid-Atlantic.
Skunk cabbage is poking out of wet places, luring early flying flies to the flowers with their perfumes of rotting meat. Skunk cabbage can generate metabolic heat, melting their way through snow and ice, providing a warm place for pollinators to rest and lay eggs. It’s all sham, though. The heat fades with the flowers and the larval flies starve in the depths of the flower. The dime-sized harbinger of spring at least provides nectar for the solitary bees who visit its flower clusters, arranged like parabolic reflectors and tracking the sun through the day. Most of the spring wildflowers due in the next month have the same general shape and behavior.
Spring is peeking in the windows, getting its foot in the door. Each species, plant and animal, runs on its own calendar. For some, it is still the dead of winter, for others, it’s time to get going. Most, however, are hitting the snooze button and turning over for a quick last doze.
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