Phoebes and blooming hepatica mark spring’s arrival
After a few crazy deadlines, some trips to some new (to me) natural areas and going to a habitat forum (more on that in an upcoming column), I decided at the end of last week to take a break and go look for signs of spring.
Last Tuesday, the first day of March, was warm, so I walked up the mountain behind my house. This time of year, any signs of spring there are usually in or around the ponds or low on the forest floor.
The pond visit yielded sightings of wood frogs but no eggs yet. Looks like their calling frenzy late in December came to naught, but they usually have bred by now, and should have done so in this relatively warm winter. So where are the eggs?
In walking around the damp, mixed-hardwood forest just south of the pond, where I found a lot of mushrooms blooming during the December warm spell, I could see no new blooms. I did find a treasure — a good-sized snail shell (about one inch across) lying among the litter on the forest floor. Battered and bleached by the elements, and with a gaping hole, it was still quite pretty.
Not seeing any blooms of mushrooms or early wildflowers, I started heading back down the mountain, but a tiny bright spot near a log caught my eye. Bending down, I saw a lone hepatica blossom sticking up out of the leaf litter, the first one I’d seen since the warm spell in December.
More signs of spring started coming in. Skunk cabbage is starting to pop up in the wetland at the bottom of the mountain. Bird vocalizations have picked up in the last week here in Rappahannock as permanent avian residents claim their territories and migrating birds are starting to return from their overwintering spots further south and east. Some species in Virginia, like the Phoebes, just head to the warmer climes in the Coastal Plain and are one of the earliest of the migratory birds to show up here in the Blue Ridge. I’ve heard them calling in several areas of the county, including where I live.
One of the harbingers of spring is not something I look forward to — tree pollen. With the weather warming, these early pollen-producers are cranking up their pollen spewing. According to the email list Pollen.com offers, on Sunday, the pollen count, for cedars and maples, was medium, but the warm weather this week will boost that, and the box elders are adding to the mix.
For me, this means the excitement of spring approaching is dampened by not only having my genetically impaired sinuses clogged 24/7 but also my brain fogged (more than normal) and crying out for sleep. I’m starting to think the Greek god Morpheus (who morphed into the Sandman in European countries) was actually carrying cedar pollen.
One evening early this week, driving through Old Hollow and up Thornton Gap Church Road, I finally heard spring peepers chorusing in the usual pools along the way, with one lone American woodcock also beeping out his call to potential mates. I’d had the pleasure of hearing peepers chorusing in all the wooded wetlands I hiked through in a visit to the Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge with a friend a couple of Sundays ago (Feb. 28). Spring usually arrives in that area, in Virginia’s Coastal Plain, a week or more before it comes to us in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge regions.
Eagles, which normally breed in late winter, were also nesting at the refuge, and red-winged blackbirds had arrived from the south.
Daylight savings starts this Sunday, a man-made harbinger of spring. And with the warm temps in the 70s this week, I’ll venture to say that spring is indeed on its way and we’ll soon be hearing peepers chorusing in low-lying vernal pools throughout the Piedmont and Blue Ridge regions.
© 2016 Pam Owen