It Must Be Spring
Every winter I always look for the first signs of the changes occurring all around us, indicating the onset of spring.
And yet every year, when I find myself seeing them, I tend to comment to somebody, “Man, that’s early. We’re gonna have an early spring this year.” However, every year it turns out to not be early, but right on time. We look forward to spring, but are hesitant to give up winter and the opportunities for rain in the foothills and snow on the mountains.
Wildflowers blooming on the slopes of the foothills visible from my home also surprise me when they pop up. They come into existence on soft kitten-feet, quietly and gently. One morning I get up and there’s a patch of white Snow Drops spreading out over a green clearing. I turn a corner on the road, and a row of Fiddleneck are growing beside the pavement. On the morning after my kitchen fire, I hurried to town to get the oil changed in my truck. I’d had to postpone it the afternoon before, because I was cleaning up the results of a small fire on my stovetop. While they worked on the truck, I relaxed in a chair, enjoying the beautiful spring morning.
The return of the buzzards to our foothills is another indication of an impending spring. I’m always excited to see their unique migration habits. Glancing around as I waited, I noticed a small bunch of buzzards circling over Zalud Park. At first glance, there seemed to be only half a dozen, so it didn’t seem unusual. After all, even though the majority of buzzards migrate south in the fall, there are always a few that stay in the area for the winter to clean up the carrion.
Their southerly departure is often motivated by the arrival of the first rain storm of the season.
Watching these amazing flyers take to the warm morning air, I realized they had already gained more altitude than I’d expect for birds having spent the night in the big Sycamore trees around the park. Then I spotted more birds below them, circling an invisible column of rising air.
Hey, wait a minute. If they’re circling a rising thermal bubble of air, there might be another group of birds farther north. Scanning to my right, I saw another column of birds. Between the rising column of black dots, there were a row of them, gliding north toward the bottom of the next bubble of rising air. As they flew off the top of the first stack, they floated along, wings not flapping as they glided to my right proceeding north.
When I spotted the second group, all circling around another rising bubble of air, I realized the buzzards were back. Now they were busy migrating north to the foothills for the summer months.
It was relatively early in the day, but comfortably warm. The air bubbles were still small, rising no more than a couple of hundred feet. Each column of birds had 15 or 20 riding the thermal lift. When the rising bubble dissipated or broke apart, they turned north off the top of the stack, looking for the next rising bubble marked by a column of circling birds.
One spring day many years ago, I had an opportunity to see several hundred buzzards migrating north. It was late in the morning, and the warm sun had created taller, more vigorous bubbles of rising air. There were at least a hundred or more in each stack of circling birds. The string floating north to the next column made a narrow dark stripe across the cloudless sky.
As they flew into the bottom of the next stack, they turned toward the center, circling as they rose, riding the upward thermal lift. Several hundred feed higher, at the top of their ride, they once again peeled off, continuing their migration north.
That morning I saw five separate rising columns of large black birds, each farther north than the previous one. The columns were several hundred feet tall. It was impossible to get an accurate count of the number of migrating birds flying north. However, it could easily have been between one and three thousand.
After spotting a small flock of buzzards in Porterville as they migrated north, I posted a comment on Facebook. This brought a reply quoting a retired Calfire guy, “When you see the buzzards migrating north, fire season is only ninety days away.”
It was only mid-february. That means by mid-may we could be into early fire season?
Is that possible?
We’ve only had 6.32 inches of moisture on our hills near my home so far this year. Every time we have rain predicted by the 10-day forecast, by the time it’s only four or five days away, it’s disappeared. However, there does appear to be an encouraging prediction of rain early next week.
The last rain I recorded was on Valentine’s Day, February 14. I saw the buzzards on the 18th. Could that mean the birds knew winter was over? Did they know there would be no more rains to soak their feathers? Holy mackerel, I sure hope not.
If our weather turns warm in late April, as it almost always does, instead of encouraging the grass to grow tall and lush, it could begin to dry whatever is there into ignitable fuel. And anytime there are ignitable fuels, there will surely be another fire season.