First of the Season

Spring starts in the small details--a warm smell to the air, the sound of spring peepers after sunset or tiny green buds along a brown branch. Today, the first buds are added to my sights of spring around the cabin. Sometimes spring starts with a bang—that was last year when a late cold spell held spring at bay for weeks. When winter finally did relent, spring exploded all at once. This year, so far at least, spring is appearing one detail at a time. Each new day brings a tiny new thing to the forest.

In the evenings, I walk up and down the driveway or wander out back, searching for something that looks different than it did the day before. The changes I find are subtle ones, tiny ones, but they are there.

Bird migration seems to have stalled over my piece of the forest. I have yet to see fox sparrow or hear a towhee. I was astonished to read the reports of good numbers of migrating hawks along the eastern Great Lakes already. I have seen none of that here yet.

Here, the grey weather has yet to bring April showers, though the weather threatens every day. I am starting to long for a little sun, but the grey clouds are as unrelenting as last year’s spring cold snap.