Bird migrations intensify with arrivals of numerous species

From the moist meadow to the wither’d hill,

Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,

And swells and deepens, to the cherish’d eye.

— James Thomson

The moon and stars

The Cows Switching Their Tails Moon waxes through its second quarter to become a full Supermoon on April 26, thanks to its position at perigee (its position closest to Earth) on April 27. Rising in the evening and setting in the morning, this moon passes overhead in the middle of the night, encouraging creatures to be hungrier at that time, especially as the cold fronts of April 28 and May 3 approach.

Late in the evening, the Milky Way fills the western horizon as Orion sets just behind the sun. Now the middle of the heavens is in it prime spring planting position, Castor and Pollux to the west, Leo with its bright Regulus directly overhead, and Arcturus dominating the east. At midnight, the brightest star overhead is Arcturus, the brightest western star is Regulus, and the brightest light in the east is Vega. At morning chore time, Vega is the brightest star above you. Arcturus is the brightest in the western sky. Deep along the northern horizon the brightest star is Capella.

Weather trends

Beginning on April 27, highs in the 90s become possible, and the chances of a high in the 80s pass the 20% mark. The chances of a high above 70s degrees are now 50/50 or better for the first time this year.

Events in nature

Bird migrations intensify with the arrival of red-headed woodpeckers, catbirds, cedar waxwings, yellow-throated vireos, meadow larks, indigo buntings, scarlet tanagers, Baltimore orioles, cowbirds, kingbirds and more than a dozen varieties of warblers.

The antlers of white-tailed deer begin to grow just as all major garden weeds are sprouting. Daddy longlegs start hunting in the undergrowth as cliff swallows migrate.

The first cycle of cabbage white butterflies is at its peak. Ducklings and goslings are born, and warblers swarm north.

Meadow parsnip, wood betony, honeysuckle, buckeye and red horse-chestnut flower.

Late spring arrives as admiral butterflies hatch. Field grasses are long enough to ripple in the wind.

Mosquitoes may bite you in the garden as flowering begins on lilacs, azaleas, raspberries and ragwort.

Countdown to spring

■ One week until iris and poppies and daisies come into flower

■ Two weeks until the beginning of clover time in yards and pastures

■ Three weeks until the first orange day lily flowers

■ Four weeks until roses bloom and thistles bud

■ Five weeks until the first strawberry shortcake

■ Six weeks until cottonwoods bloom and send their cotton through the air

■ Seven weeks to the first mulberry pie

Mind and body

The S.A.D. Index, which measures seasonal stress on a scale from 1 to 100, reads a mild 28 on April 20, its lowest reading so far this year. It then rises quickly throughout the remainder of the month under the influence of the April Supermoon, reaching a troublesome 49 on both the 26th and 27th.

In the field and garden

After full moon, destroy tent caterpillars as they hatch and plant all your remaining root crops. Weevils may be emerging in alfalfa. Iris borers are hatching now; check your roots.

Watercress flowers are opening, excellent for salads and garnishing. Field corn planting continues throughout the nation.

The high leaf canopy is beginning to fill in, casting shade on the flower and vegetable garden.

Use silage and hay supplements to take up the feeding slack if pasture growth is slow because of cold.

Aphids are appearing in the field and garden; ladybugs are hunting them. Just one month until every single tender plant can be placed outside. Winter wheat is typically four to eight inches high

Journal

It seems that, like love, spring does not rise complete or whole from space or ether, is never a priori. Like love, it seems to me, spring can depend on the slightest movement of an object, the faintest scent, a glimpse of what might happen, an oblique suggestion of fulfillment.

Like love, spring is precariously dependent upon a fabric of sound and odor and tactile sensation and visual angle and color and chemical surges that build one upon the other, day after day, until it is much too late to return to winter dormancy and expectation and solitude.

The sight of one daffodil or the first robin in the yard can create sudden spring, spring-at-first-sight. It can also grow and accumulate year after year like long, true love until each corner of its nature and each crevice of its devices are part of us.

And now, the season (like love, of course) is getting out of hand. Now everything is happening at once, and in the next thirty days, every kind of plant and tree, something like a thousand species, will sprout new leaves or flowers. Like a person in love, I want to join them, to be like them, to stand for them, to have them stand for me, to be part of them, have them be part of me. I want them to have meaning. I want to know that I have meaning.