Week of March 31, 2024 – April 6, 2024
by Tom Meier, Camp Director and Program Manager
Can you hear it? Goldfinches, sparrows, cardinals, bluebirds, and robins are all singing their little lungs out. Loud flocks of geese have been moving about overhead for weeks and are settling out in the ponds and marshes, already sitting on nests. The welcome song of spring peepers heralding in the spring.
Can you see it? Hepatica is in bloom along our Valley Trail, though somewhat guarded and closed up on these chilly late March days…ready for sunshine and a mason bee, but not quite convinced.
Can you smell it? The air is different this time of year, more humid and earthy than the dry cold air of winter. Skunks are about on warmer nights advertising their own “earthy” scent, too!
Can you feel it? The urge to shake off winter and move. This time of year all of nature seems to be on the move. Birds making insane trips from South America to the arctic. Queen bumblebees bouncing around the leaf litter looking for some early flowers and an abandoned mouse tunnel where she can start a new colony. The sudden appearance of trout lily and trillium leaves. Frogs, toads, salamanders, even butterflies and dragonflies – everyone has something to do and somewhere to be.
Is this true for you, as well? There are those among us that always seem to be on the move, never content to sit still, or always on the lookout for the next “thing” somewhere that’s not here. Some of us have a need to rearrange the furniture, or organize that closet, throw open the windows and let the stale air move out. Some of us migrate south to north in spring, just like the birds. This time of year you’ll see houses go up for sale as your neighbors get new jobs and move away. New neighbors arrive, just as our winter birds are replaced by the spring migrants and summer nesters.
This is a season of exciting change and an explosion of life. While there are all of the scientific explanations for this movement (warming degree days, precession of the Earth’s axis, and changing photoperiods), sometimes it is OK to forget all of that and just soak in some long-forgotten sunshine, listen to the birds, smell the flowers. Take a tip from all of nature and give in to the urge to get out and move around.