The annual natural wonders that are spring
Celebrating the annual, natural wonders that are the rites of spring
With people stuck at home and worried about their future, there is no better time to remind ourselves of the wonders of spring. The change of season is all around us with many facets of backyard biology, perhaps even things your kids might want to learn. In Part 1 of the Science of Spring, Tom
Spears looks at the rush of returning energy in the natural world.
You know there’s change in the wind when a working scientist talks like this: “You step out your door, you look up at the sky and the geese are going over. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed geese going over as much as I do now, because it’s so hopeful. The world is going like it’s going to go on. You can take tremendous consolation in that — that birds are doing their thing and everything (in nature around us) is just fine.”
That’s Dan Brunton, an Ottawa naturalist and retired environmental consultant, with a message that there’s a lot to see, even in early spring.
“Enjoy your first redwing (blackbird). Enjoy your first gull. The song sparrows are out singing in my neighbour’s hedge this morning, first ones of the year.
“Song sparrows returning says to me: We really have got spring returning. I don’t care how much snow is out there.”
He calls these “wonderful signs of birth and renewal and the tenacity of nature.”
The sun is the engine of all this. The sun is moving rapidly higher in the sky. It is now nearly 50 degrees above the Ottawa horizon at midday compared to 22 degrees when winter began, delivering more and more energy per square metre of land. It will max out around 68 degrees when summer begins. (The horizon is zero degrees and straight overhead is 90.)
Some signs of early spring came long before we might think.
The first flocks of migrating birds came in February. Little white snow buntings flew north in flocks of up to 100, passing through the farm country on the edges of the city. Ravens already hatched their eggs in February and the chicks are large by now.
“I saw a robin trying to build a nest this morning in somebody’s porch.
“We have house finches. We have a pair that has nested for several years now at the top of a supporting column of our front porch,” in the Lincoln Fields area. “There’s a little bit of a flange exposed. They can get in, and the starlings can’t get there.”
More fresh activity: “I had a chipmunk running across the road (last week). That’s very early. I think they have just emerged.” (Chipmunks live in underground burrows and spend the entire winter there, like groundhogs.)
Plants are less active at this time of year, Brunton said, but there are exceptions.
“If people look at red maple trees, not sugar maple, the buds are swelling like crazy.” The buds have a reddish tint. (Red maples are not the kind with purple-red leaves, a type called crimson king. Red maples have green leaves.)
“The other indication is that you will see squirrels way up in the maple trees and they are nipping off all the buds. They’re getting a little hit of sugar with each bite.”
Though animals look happy to be out, there is also a danger. This time of year has high mortality rates because last year’s berries are gone from trees and winter stores of food are mainly used up. They need new plant growth, too.
But Brunton says our local grey and black squirrels look healthy, suggesting that this was not a severe winter for them.
Even if plants are not yet putting out leaves, they are working hard behind the scenes.
Sap is running, though earlier in some tree species (sugar maples) than others (butternuts and walnuts: “They are sound asleep for now,” Brunton says.)
“What is really important is what’s happening in the top centimetre of soil right now. The temperature is increasing because there is all this water dripping down. That increases the chemical activity. There are gazillions of small organisms operating in the soil right now. We can’t see them.”
Among the first plants to flower, in a few weeks, will be the “spring ephemerals” — trilliums and trout lilies and other plants that flower quickly in the forest before trees grow leaves and cut off the sunlight. They stored up food energy in their roots last summer and just need a little warmth to sprout and flower.
“It’s full steam ahead now. That’s what the plants are doing,” Brunton said.
Paul Keddy, a former University of Ottawa biology professor, offers these signs of spring:
Red-winged blackbirds have returned. Males are also displaying their red epaulettes. Males are making their territorial calls. A few males are even calling from cattail marshes, which means they are starting to set up territories. Robins have returned. They are also singing to mark their breeding territory. Chipmunks are out and around. Their appearance is almost as reliable as the birds and the frogs. Ice is melting at the edge of ponds for salamanders. The first amphibians to breed are salamanders. They breed when the ponds are still covered in ice, except where it is melted at the edges. We expect them to start breeding any day now. Streams are starting to flow. Once it becomes warm enough and fast enough, the stream starts to cut upward through the ice. tspears@postmedia.com twitter.com/TomSpears1
There are a lot of people who are going at their own dogs with scissors right now. It’s not the same as hair styling. With dogs, it can be kind of painful and not good for them in the long run.
KaYLA ANKa, a self-employed dog groomer whose income has disappeared. SEE A4