Field Notes—

The Longer, Lighter, Brighter Days Of Spring

By Dottie Evans

It seems premature during the first week of March to be talking about spring, especially since the arctic cold of last weekend made me loathe to leave my favorite nest on the couch where I was warmly comforted by a blanket, a space heater, and two devoted spaniels.

By noon, however, the abundant sunshine lured me outside. Though I could see my breath while running errands and though I tended to scatter pennies as frozen fingers fumbled for the quarters needed to buy coffee, I noted a certain lightness in the frigid air.

Despite the cold, I find reasons to celebrate. Each day brings new evidence of winter loosening and losing its grip.

On certain south-facing, sunny slopes, pale green spears of daffodils are poking two inches out of the frozen ground. I’ve heard snatches of birdsong while walking out to collect the newspaper. Also heard, a blue jay calling and a woodpecker drumming.

The song sparrow that has been scratching around under the feeder for weeks finally began singing on February 25. Every year at this time, I listen for his distinctive, repetitive song and I always mark the date. He’s never late by more than a day or two.

The male cardinal is the farthest along practicing the full version of his trademark whistle. That cheerful, calling song seems more insistent as the days go by.

Snowdrops are blooming under the lilac bush, and lilac buds are beginning to swell on the branches and turn light green.

A friend said he spied nearly 100 robins gathered beneath some crabapple trees on the green across from Carol Peck’s Restaurant in Woodbury. Fellow travelers making a pit stop on their journey north, I suppose.

The sap is rising in the maples, and plants respond as their juices flow. The changing palette of the spring landscape begins with the emergence of soft yellowish puffs amidst the dominant gray and brown. These are the willow trees taking the lead, greening up while other species remain dormant.

Indoor plants react to the increasing light. They’re growing again, requiring more water. Some are looking quite pained, signaling with yellowing leaves — time to move me away from the south-facing window, if you please.

Before long, mixed flocks of redwing blackbirds, purple grackles, and starlings will descend into my yard calling excitedly as they overwhelm the birdfeeders, consuming every seed in sight. They’ll arrive in a bunch, stay awhile, and then leave as suddenly as they came.

Soon, every pond and stream will be floating its own pair of mallards. On the first warm, sunny day that I can escape to the woods for a walk, I might see a mourning cloak butterfly flitting across the path.

I’m no scientist and I don’t want to hear elaborate astronomical explanations about how and why such things happen, but there is clear evidence all around of a change in the planet’s angle with reference to the sun.

While fixing breakfast I notice the sun is rising farther to the east. Now it shines directly onto the jade plant under the kitchen window, no longer hiding behind the distant grove of evergreens to the south. And its angle is higher. The shadow of the house at daybreak keeps shrinking, and it no longer extends halfway across the yard.

In the evening, the sun sets later and more to the west. Seen from the living room, the fiery orange ball is rolling from left to right around the corner of the house so now the slanting rays spill across the driveway at 5:30 pm, instead of reflecting off the mailbox at 5.

Spring comes creeping slowly and by incremental stages. Neither cold, nor late-season snowstorms like we’re sure to get in March, nor the date on the wall calendar can adequately tell the story.

It’s the light — the sun’s strengthening rays and the lengthening of the days — that makes it happen. Stand outside with your face turned toward the sun. Feel that penetrating warmth.