Spring has sprung in the Southern Tier. Enjoy it while it lasts
Folks, might I suggest you walk to the nearest doorway and stick your head out?
Maybe you’ll see robins pulling worms. Maybe you’ll smell rain slipping through leaden skies, bringing life to the tired lawns of winter. Should the evening be warm, you might watch moths bumping porch lights with misguided insistence.
Whatever the stimuli, they should buoy your spirits. They should trigger a longing to get outdoors, rake some thatch, walk the dog or sneak up on a throng of spring peepers.
All hail planets spinning – it’s springtime again. Our northern hemisphere has tired of cold weather, sidled up to the sun and is splitting at the seams. We’ve rotated through another winter and are about to enjoy a vernal free-for-all.
These mornings and evenings, the sounds you dreamed of in snowstorms resound in all natural corners. Peepers and wood frogs hold forth in a nearby wetland. Entombed for months in winter duff, silenced by hibernation, they’ve been liberated to puff up their throat patches, filling nights with quacks, barks and – yes – telltale peeps.
Male ruffed grouse also join in to make their unique brand of sound. Males climb atop a fallen log, then begin slowly beating wings against flanks. A deep, thumping sound results. As the grouse wings beat faster, the beats become so rapid-fire, they create a blurred crescendo. Some say it resembles the sound of an old farm tractor coughing, then roaring to life.
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Grouse also take dust baths on dry country roads. Should motorists chance by, the birds stare down intruders in a manner belying their normal wariness. Neck feathers flare. Tails fan, then they flick up and down.
Tom turkeys are also intent on asserting their presence. Thundering airborne across the road, they become copper-colored cannonballs, aglow in early morning sun. Wattles aflame, blue heads gleaming, the Toms then strut about dragging their wings. The hens for which all of this hoopla unfolds seem intent on ignoring the show.
Unfazed, the gobblers fan and puff, ignoring a human peanut gallery watching from not far away.
Then there are butterflies, bees and the sprouting of hardwood tree buds. The butterflies are delicate things called painted ladies. They flit through spring woodlands on angled wings. Their flight is jerky but inherently graceful – small girls in a ballet class setting.
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They land on trees and disappear. Bark-colored wings provide camouflage.
The bees are honeybees, hungry for nectar and awaiting apple blossom time. Until it comes, they flock to crocus blooms, crawling among purple petals, covering themselves with pollen.
Tree buds belong to red maples. They stand out against a backdrop of high-pressure blue. High-pressure blue is the color of sky when Northwest winds have been blowing for days. Air breathed in cleans the lungs it’s so fresh.
Finally, there is Leo, a lion-shaped constellation that makes friends readily and is easy to see. Arching ever higher in the southern sky, it trails Orion toward the western horizon.
Enjoy these spring pleasures and so many more. They are short-lived, ephemeral, fleeting – you get it – and epitomize an all-too-short season.
E-mail Rick at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Spring is fleeting. Don't miss these seasonal sights in New York