T. S. Eliot wrote “April is the cruellest month” but in my opinion it’s the frenzied one.

Everything’s blooming, everything’s popping, frogs are mating, birds are migrating.  Every day produces a new sign of spring.  The birds are frantic to court, mate and nest.

Hurry. Hurry.  For the next eight weeks I’m frenzied too.  There’s just not enough time to see it all.

Where to begin?  With a list of what to look for!

• Top of my list for early April are yellow-throated warblers, pictured here, who will return in the next 10 days.  They sing from the sycamores along our creeks and are amazingly hard to spot.  Unlike most warblers they move somewhat slowly, walking on the high trunks and large branches.  When they stop to sing they throw their heads back and show their yellow throats.  I look for them at Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve and Enlow Fork.
• While looking up high for yellow-throated warblers, don’t forget to check the creek banks and understory trees for Louisiana waterthrushes.  You’ll probably hear them before you see them.
• Also coming are osprey, common loons, golden-crowned kinglets, rough-winged swallows, barn swallows, purple martins and the first blue-gray gnatcatchers.
• You’ll see flowers in the woods:  Spring beauties, Hepatica, Harbinger-of-spring, Purple cress, Twinleaf, Violets and more!  I’ve already seen my first bittercress. Hairy bittercress, an alien, pops up in my backyard.
• With flowers in bloom the insects come out: bees, flies and butterflies.  My favorites are mourning cloaks and spring azures (yes, they’re azure blue).

And much, much more.  For all the details – and you will need them – see Chuck Tague’s phenology.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Even before dawn I could hear the robins singing.   Last night a large flock filled the trees near my house and sang their very best songs.  I thought they would leave overnight but they were here to greet the morning, too.

I stepped out on the front porch in the dark and was immediately surrounded by birdsong.  Lightning glowed in the southwest.  The robins sang on.  I went indoors for coffee.

While I was inside the storm arrived but it was mild.  Rumbles of thunder, rain tapping on the roof and windows, water gurgling in the gutters.  A lone robin continued singing in the rain.  What an audio feast! 

The storm has passed.  A sunbeam gleams on the city skyline five miles away.  The robins are singing again joined by song sparrows, cardinals, juncoes and chickadees.  The local crows caw as they regroup. 

Today’s rain precedes a cold front – maybe snow showers tonight.  What a joy to have heard the sounds of spring.

(photo of an American Robin by Chuck Tague)

Spring is really kicking in at last!  Here’s a flower you can expect to see soon, a non-native species that arrived with European settlers, perhaps for use as a cough suppressant.

Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) is one of the earliest flowers to bloom.  It grows in waste places so you’ll see it by the side of the road.

People sometimes mistake coltsfoot for dandelion but it blooms when no leaves are apparent. Its stems have tiny leaf bracts but its big basal leaves don’t appear until the flower is gone.  They’re shaped like a colt’s footprint, hence the name “colts’ foot.”

There will be lots of other signs of spring in the next two weeks.  Chuck Tague listed many of them in his late March phenology.  Here are some of my favorites:

• Ducks, ducks and more ducks!  Look for these migrants on local lakes.
• More songbirds will arrive including tree swallows, eastern phoebes, eastern meadowlarks and eastern bluebirds.
• Watch for blooming forsythia, snow trillium, harbinger of spring, violets, and of course coltsfoot.
• Frogs are singing and mating.  I heard spring peepers at Middle Creek last weekend.   And if you hear ducks quacking from the ground in a swampy area, it could well be wood frogs.  Years ago I was fooled by wood frogs at Friendship Hill as I searched and searched an empty wet field for ducks.  None.  Eventually it dawned on me.  Wood frogs!
• Skunks and groundhogs are coming out of their winter dens and dining along the grassy roadside edges.  Watch out when you drive!  They move slowly.
• American woodcocks (also called timberdoodles) “peent” and twitter in their aerial mating dance.  I heard one very close to my car before dawn at Middle Creek but could not see it.   Here’s what I heard.
• Peregrine nesting season is in full swing and I will do my best not to make this blog into “All Peregrines All the Time.”  Oh, it will be hard!

Look for signs of spring in your neighborhood and let me know what you find.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)

3 March 2009:

Brrrrrrr!

This morning it was 6^oF outdoors with a wind chill of -8.  Today I’m wishing especially hard for spring.  When will I be able to put away my parka and wear a jacket instead?

Chuck Tague gave me a hint when he published his phenology for early March.  It spurred my appetite and made me wish for…

• The First of Year common grackles arriving with the blackbird flocks.
• Especially large flocks of robins singing at dusk and dawn for about two weeks this month.
• More sunlight in the evening after we turn the clocks forward for Daylight Saving Time. This year it’s on March 7 so sunrise on March 8 will be at 7:45am, sunset at 7:16pm.
• Intensive peregrine courting and the start-up of the Pittsburgh falconcams.
• Mud Season: I’ll switch from snow boots to mud boots.
• and Jacket Weather!  (Thanks to Joan Tague for telling me about this celebration.)

Spring is just around the corner.

I gotta believe!

(photo by Chuck Tague)