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I love spring Well, maybe not spring itself, but the transition period leading up to the third week in March.
It is this time of year my retrievers have a bit more energy. You can tell by their body language as they go outside and play. Their tails are held higher, their prance has pride and their noses continually wave in the air taking on new spring-fed scent brought on by warming winds.
Even my dog training partners, Ronnie LaDuke and Charlie Durant, begin to snap out of their winter torpor as they gear up for relentless fieldwork.
This seasonal transition period offers the outdoors lover ample visual, olfactory and auditory delights. As the cool morning breaks first light, one can step outside and hear the melodic rhapsody of a dozen species of songbirds and the sharp high-pitched shrills of birds like the male cardinal.
Soon, the skies will be filled with formations of migrating geese — both Canadas and Snows. I'm always amazed at the tens of thousands of high-flying white waves of snow geese that slice their way through our part of the world. If luck goes my way, a flock or two of snow geese will take a day or two respite on the river in front of the house and spend countless hours filling their bellies at Matthew's farm — a mere three miles from my home.
Gazing across a wide and flat farm field just outside Waddington, a dozen winter-tired wild turkeys gather together as they scratch for remnants of spilt grain as three mature gobblers display their colorful tail feathers.
Off in the distance a small flock of morning doves line up on a power line. Their mournful, repetitive cooing can be clearly heard at a distance of over 100 yards. Close your eyes and the dove's singing will transport you to a magical place far away.
Even though many people believe the first sighting of a red-winged blackbird officially signifies spring, in my book it's the dispersal of the white-tailed deer from their wintering yards, the incessant head bobbing of the goldeneye and, believe it or not, the first odoriferous smells of a skunk that signifies the start of spring.
Now is the time, during warm days and cool nights where mature stands of sugar maple surrender their sap for the age-old production of the delicious, fragrant sweetness of maple syrup.
While visiting a sugar bush this time of year I'm always amazed at the sign of emerging small game. Gray and red squirrel tracks litter the last remains of what northerners call "sugar snow." Interspersed among the little toe prints of a red squirrel I find a slight set of bird tracks leading to a young stand of poplar. Off in the distance the staccato beats of a drumming ruffed grouse instantly gives away his whereabouts. |
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Back at home, the speedy retreat of shoreline ice caused by the warming rays of sunlight has opened up liquid blue pockets of cool, refreshing water, where two returning drake mallards, adorned in brilliant greenish-blue heads, chase a single hen like two school-aged boys chasing their pig-tailed sweetheart around the playground.
Not far, in a shallow bay, movement along a line of cattails, in about a half a foot of water, glides a faint, dark shadow. The yard-long northern pike cautiously weaves its way in and out of the cattail rows in search for a midday snack. Nearby, a skinny muskrat, aware of the oncoming northern pike, makes a frantic scramble toward the safety of the shoreline.
Spring is life. Spring brings out life's passions. Spring not only serves as nature's renewal but as a renewal of our inner spirit. I love spring. |
