Did you remember to set your timepieces ahead an hour? Did you have to? I now have only two clocks I have to reset - all my others do it automatically.

A few years ago both my computer and cell phone informed me of what they’d done, and properly so. Now, holding me in electronic contempt they don’t bother doing even that. They just do it. I expect that others will be making the discovery that younger folks don’t even know what the time change is. The poor little chicks will be a little bewildered at how tired they are, or how much darker it is in the morning or evening than the previous day, but all their devices will be as sisters doing it for themselves. Deal.

So it was that I was thinking of the signs of spring, which we imagine are predictable and continual. For us down here in the southeast, a break in the weather is not very informative, as we can have extended periods of warm days and nights at any time during the winter. I usually watch for a change in the behavior of the organisms around me, and the more startling, the better.

That rules out box turtles, which might have been your first guess if you have been a reader of this blog, casting about. After all, if I’m a one-note song, that’s what it’s about. Although the first box turtles I’ve found have, coincidentally or not, appeared within a day or two of March 21, the traditional first day of spring, those are early risers and I often won’t see those or others until the second or third week in April. That’s too late.

Daffodils, which are not native, and cannot know our ways, are among our first spring flowers, and can flower as early as January. This is clearly not spring - if you pay attention, daffodiloids have a huge range of flowering times - they’ve been bred that way.

I have written about something I call “the greening,” occurring sometime around April 8, 2006, or April 2, 2007. Well, then again, after March 28, in 2008. Or before March 10, 2008.

I think the resolution is what I here called High Spring, a full arrival into exclusively warm days, sometime around the end of April and the beginning of May. There is also the beginnings of the change that lead to that, which around here are indeed in the first to second week in March. I must also factor in that much of this greening conversation took place seven or eight warming years ago. Last March was befuddling - at 10-20 degF above normal highs, for several weeks, I wasn’t the only one confused.

Here’s one thing I think of when I think of winter changing into spring. The photo was taken just a couple of days ago, when I saw the little beech in a particularly nice spot of sun:



I love those leaves - many beech trees keep their leaves all winter (*), and then at some point post winter they drop last year’s leaves as the new ones come in.

So for me, one of the signs of spring is when those leaves get squeezed off, to make room for the new ones. It makes for a whole new look to the forest, and in a short period of time.

So for you, what signs of spring make for huge differences in perception? I don’t necessarily mean just the appearance of a single plant, like, say, redbuds, but something that alters the landscape in a very short order? Or even something that alters your feeling, like the resurgence of ticks?


*We have other deciduous species that keep their dead leaves all winter. Blackjack oak and some hornbeams (aka ironwood, blue birch) come to mind.