I’m definitely an old adage kind of guy. Our forebears used them to share information about nature before scientific knowledge was being taught in schools to make note of relationships that benefited them, prior to the times we live in now where we just go to the store to buy our food or lawn care products. Certainly we can and often do get a lot of rain in April, our first full month of spring, but plenty of flowers come out in April and other changes in our natural landscape in advance of the growing season. Chipmunks have woken up, and I am seeing them running along stone walls. The big snowstorm in March, which came as a surprise given how the winter started, slowed down at least temporarily the emergence and return of some animals. Recent warmer temps and rain have gotten things back on track. Spotted salamanders, spring peeper frogs and wood frogs will soon come out from the leaf litter on a rainy evening and make their march to small ponds for their annual spring mating.
Spring migrant birds are returning. Great blue herons are back stalking the edges of local ponds and renewing their nests in dead trees in small ponds and swamps. Turkey vultures have been gliding north; they look like large hawks or eagles. Phoebes can be heard making their “peewee” call while they look for early flying insects, and killdeers can be heard making their “killdeer” call as they fly around local fields. They look like sandpipers you would expect to see at the beach, but favor fields and fresh water.
Another sandpiperish-looking bird is the American woodcock, which has a beak about 6 inches long and probes moist woodlands for earthworms. Just after sunset each evening they will begin calling, and males fly in an elaborate, high-pitched noisy “dance” for the females. Song sparrows and wood ducks are starting to get ready for their nesting season. Eastern painted turtles, our most common turtle, are sunning themselves on warm days in local ponds. The first butterflies appear on warm sunny days; Morning Cloaks (larger brown with yellow wing trim) and Spring Azures (tiny bluish) are nice signs of spring.
Fishing season begins in earnest for those of us who like to fish. We took one of our boats for a “shakedown” run on Lake Quinsigamond earlier this month, and we were not alone. Others were testing out their ski boats and kayaks, several bass boats were on the water, and people were already casting lines.
Trout stocking has started in Long Pond, Comet Pond, Lake Quinsigamond and others. Remember that the Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife website reports where stocking has occurred. April school vacation is often when my son and I catch our first trout while we wait for the saltwater to warm enough to head there. The blooming of trout lilies in our local woods also is an alarm clock for trout fishermen. On Cape Cod, herring runs have started seeing their first annual visit by herring, which swim up as salmon do to breed in freshwater. Striped bass follow, and by late April and early May targetable number of “stripers.” Once ocean waters hit 50 degrees, haddock, squid (aka calamari) and stripers are what we hope to begin chasing.
Back to April flowers. Both flowers we plant in and around our yards and wild plants have begun to blossom. Skunk cabbage flowers and false hellebore plants appear in wet woodland areas, violets and dandelions are blossoming in lawns and yard edges, daffodils in garden beds.
Dandelions blooming on Cape Cod is said to mark the start of the Tautog bite, a delicious fish that feeds not far from shore in the early spring and late fall. Skunk cabbage blossoms also often coincide with bears emerging from hibernation; bears eat it for the enormous amount of calories packed into those early season flowers. This also means we need to consider taking in bird feeders, which the bears will visit readily for a free meal.
Nature can serve as a calendar and was used before all the technology of today, but those old markers still ring true in many cases.
Featured Flora and Fauna:
Shadbush and Forsythia blossom in April. Forsythia is an ornamental shrubby tree planted in many local yards. It has vibrant yellow blossoms in early spring and is often the first flower many of us notice. The flowers come out before the leaves, making them stand out. Once the flowers are done blooming, very “plain”-looking green leaves replace them, and we often do not pay much attention to the plants the rest of the year. Forsythia, like many of our garden plants, is not native, having been imported from China. Unlike some plants, it is not an “invasive” plant that readily takes over, but can benefit from pruning. Serviceberry is also known as Shadbush, as it was used to alert early settlers to the arrival of shad fish swimming up rivers. The fish were an important food source of early settlers in the Americas, particularly here in the Northeast. Shad runs still occur in the Connecticut and Merrimack rivers, and fishermen still target them in the early season when the shadbush blooms. I have caught them a few times in the Merrimack while doing early season striped bass fishing. These trees are native in our local woods, and the white flowers, which also come out before the leaves, can often be seen from a distance and blossom early compared to many of our other trees and plants. Why blossom early? Some early insects are out and can act as pollinators for these flowers, carrying pollen from flower to flower as they feed on pollen and nectar. Leaves come out on shadbush trees in May, and the flowers become berries that look almost like blueberries and are a favorite food of birds and chipmunks in June and July. These are great native planting for yards available from some local nurseries and places such as the Arbor Day Foundation.
The weather is getting nicer and nicer, and the days are getting longer and longer. Sunsets are now well after 7 p.m. and offer plenty of time to get out for a walk in the yard or on a nearby rail trail or other outdoor spot. If you are an early riser, the morning chorus of birds just before and after sunrise is an awesome spectacle. Cardinals, robins, bluebirds, blackbirds and sparrows are all singing and vying for prime nesting spots.
