By Joshua Rose
Science fiction is full of tales of humans who shrink, or tiny creatures that grow. Spiders, ants, and wasps become frightening monsters if we lose our size advantage. If I were in such a situation, one of the animals I would least like to see would be a tiger beetle.
By David Spector
At a meeting of the Hampshire Bird Club last June, a friend shared with me some pictures of snakes and offered to show me where she had seen them. The snakes were northern copperheads, a locally uncommon species I had never seen, so I was eager to take her up on the invitation. A few days later my wife and I joined our friend for a hike on a forested, rocky, uphill trail. Long before we reached our destination, the walk offered many other rewards.
By Lawrence J. Winship
I love planting daffodils. It is so satisfying to tuck away next spring’s promise in the fall as the days grow short and the soil cools. Horticultural bulbs are raised in fertile beds and are thus prepared to have all of the food and nutrients they need and all of their structures pre-grown, ready to expand into action with rising temperatures in the spring. Wild bulbs, tubers, rhizomes and corms, too, spend the winter growing roots, expanding, duplicating and, in some cases, sending up shoots to just below the frost line or even up into the snow pack. When I plant spring ephemerals, then, I try to be careful to get them at the right depth, where it will stay warmer, keeping in mind that most wild bulbs are found quite deep. While I do this, I often find myself wondering: While garden flowers have humans to do the planting, who plants wild bulbs and tubers? Squirrels? Elves? The real answer is even better — the bulbs do it themselves!
By Joshua Rose
Every person has his or her own way of recognizing the coming of spring — the first robin on the lawn, newly emerged skunk cabbage, the first spring peepers calling, or perhaps the “big night” when the salamanders migrate. For me, spring is not really in full swing until the dragonflies start flying.
By Katie Koerten
One of the botanical wonders I look forward to every spring is what many people consider a common weed: the stinging nettle. Despite being more homely than my favorite ephemeral wildflowers emerging at the same time — such as Dutchman’s breeches, bloodroot and hepatica — I anticipate this plant’s appearance with just as much excitement.
By David Spector
In the late winter or early spring I usually see my first wood duck of the year. “First of year,” the first individual of a species seen in a given calendar year, is a concept particularly important to those who keep year lists of species. Even for someone like me who does not keep such a record, the first spring sighting of an especially striking bird is noteworthy, and the wood duck is striking indeed.
By Elizabeth Farnsworth
When I lived in Holyoke many years ago, I always looked forward to the spectacle of the thawing ice on the Connecticut River each spring. When ice broke up and northern snows melted with the warming weather in March and April, a torrent of water would make its way downstream, transforming the normally placid Connecticut into a rowdy, roiling flood. Exciting? Absolutely. Scary? Floods certainly can be, but these annual deluges, known as freshets, were usually nicely contained, even as the river poured over its banks. That’s because the shoreline was graced — and braced — by a hardy floodplain forest.
By David Spector
When does spring begin? There are many answers. Changing day-length offers convenient dates for calendar makers: Days have been lengthening since the solstice in December, and they get longer most rapidly at the equinox in March. Some people split the difference and have spring start at Groundhog Day, roughly midway between solstice and equinox. Plants provide many markers of the new season of growth as well.
By Joshua Rose
The snow-covered ground stretches for acres around me. The bitterly cold wind makes my eyes water. I blink the water away so I can identify the birds in front of me, birds that breed in places like this — flat, treeless, cold places. They are tundra nesters: the snow bunting, the Lapland longspur, the American pipit, and the northern horned lark. But I am not in the tundra. I am in Hadley.
By Katie Koerten
Who says spring is the best time for birding? Sure, the arrival of the first red-winged blackbird or the first phoebe is always highly anticipated as the weather gets warmer and days longer. Sure, in the springtime you get colorful warblers (if you can spot them), warbling their complicated songs. But I say winter is just as much fun for us bird lovers, because it means the hope of winter finches — birds that reside in the northern tundra for the summer months, and occasionally migrate here to the northern United States when conditions are right.
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