Photo by Glen Spurrell
Trumpeter Swans were on ice on millpond March 1st, 2018. Let’s hope they come again this year!
Janus was one of the old Roman gods and he was remarkable because he had two faces and therefore the ability to see into the past and the future. The month of March is very Janus-like: one week we’ll be in spring yet the next we’ll be back to the depths of winter. You never know what you’ll get! But renewal is sure to come.
Already the millpond seems to be waking from its winter slumbers. Dark, mysterious fingers of open water are reaching into the snow and ice. And in less than 24 hours of open water a goose is back, followed closely by a pair of mallard ducks. I assume these pioneers have been just a bit south of here or even just upstream where the water never freezes.
But one day in mid-February we had a single day of thaw, and it was during that short period I saw a hole in the ice–and nowhere near where thawing usual begins. Up out of this hole an otter had stuck its head! I was amazed and I immediately started wondering whether otters can actually break through ice and create a hole. I can tell you I was careful after that where I walked on the ice!
Walking along the Baxter Creek Trail one day, I passed over the “floating bridge”. Here too was a hole in the ice; but there was nothing to tell me who or what had created it. I peered in and I noticed what a thin covering of ice it was that had broken. To my amazement and pleasure the whole underside of the unbroken ice was covered with crystals. They hung down long and intricate like gorgeous stalactites.
Aside from the early waterfowl, many of us have noticed other signs of spring and renewal in the wildlife. The male cardinal at the top of a tree is singing lustily. He is engaged in staking out his breeding territory even though breeding will not happen for a couple of months. But make no mistake this is no guarantee of an early spring. I have heard him singing in -20 weather! The plumage of some birds is already changing to their summer, breeding colours. The starlings that come to my feeder and whose voracious appetites I could well do without have gained their summer feathers and their beaks have changed from winter drab to yellow. How the colour of a beak changes is beyond me!
According to the records I try to keep every year, we should be seeing and hearing returning birds any day. Red-winged Blackbirds are usually the first intrepid migrants and because of this they are to me a sure and very much welcome sign of spring. Keep your ears open for the sounds of the “dawn chorus”. Whether migrant or year round resident, something deep within birds is stirred and early morning song is awoken. Now that our days are lengthening in the morning to catch up to what has already been happening in the afternoons, it seems appropriate that birdsong should accompany it.
It’s two steps forward and one step back (or vice versa) at this time of year. Janus was able to look back to the past and forward to the future. We have no such god-like powers; but March allows us this privilege and we should enjoy the vestiges of winter as well as the promising signs of spring. Renewal is coming. Get out! And enjoy!
GET OUT! by Glen Spurrell
