It’s been a long time coming, but spring is — finally, maybe, hopefully, officially? — springing. It sure took its sweet time getting here. As the songbirds filter back to feeders and the air fills with the stale, coppery scent of impending rain, you feel the landscape shaking off its winter slumber and stretch once more in the sun.
We all have things we look forward to when spring arrives, cleaning up the yard certainly not being one of them. What are some spring happenings those of us in northern Michigan anticipate the most? What follows certainly isn’t everything, but they’re among my favorites.
Trout Opener. The last Saturday in April is one of the most important days for outdoorsmen in northern Michigan – the opening of trout season. However, this year will look completely different with the floodings and bridge failures. Anticipating when conditions might be “fishable” again is both impossible and, frankly, petty with the state of the county, people’s homes, and the landscape at large. I’d ask everyone to please be safe when venturing out as the waters start to recede, and they will recede.
Still, there will be gatherings done under the banner of “Trout Camp,” even though this year’s camps will feature a 100-percent focus on the typical camp staples of getting together, eating greasy foods, sleeping terribly, and griping about the Tigers’ shaky beginning to the season. (Oh, for another start like 1984, but it’s nice to see them starting to put things together.)
Gamebird Breeding Displays: The woodcock began arriving earlier this month; steelheaders are kept company by grouse drumming in the woods; ducks are flying around in spastic, brazen, and outrageous flights (or just randomly standing in the middle of roads); and turkeys are strutting their stuff (not to mention that spring turkey season starts).
It’s peak mojo time in the outdoors.
Listen for the woodcock’s nasally peent at dawn and dusk. If you can stake one out, you’ll hear the twittering wings and warbling call at the top of his skydance, and he’ll usually drop back down to nearly the same spot.
Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology states that during a ruffed grouse’s 8-10 second drumming sequence, the wings will beat upwards of 50 times. In those first few seconds, it’s only about one beat per second, so most of those beats are in that blur at the end.
(And no, the bird isn’t hitting his breast with his wings, clapping his wings together, or smacking them on his drumming log. Rather the low-frequency thump that you feel as much as hear is the sound of the compression of air in the vacuum created by the rapidly beating and slightly rotating wings. It’s the same effect as a sonic boom. Find a slo-mo video on YouTube; it’s fascinating.)
Two More Animals: We might hear and see more evidence of these next two harbingers of spring; at least, that goes for me. I’ve yet to see a black bear, and I’ve never caught a spring peeper, but they certainly herald spring in northern Michigan.
Just ask my suet feeder.
Hanging right outside our bedroom door, our suet feeder magically bent the pole it hung from down to the ground, sprouted feet, and walked out into our yard. Honest. It wasn’t a bear … 10 feet from where I slept. I mean, it doesn’t matter that our neighbor had one on his deck last fall, looking in his window. It was a raccoon. Sure. Must’ve been.
In addition to a woodcock’s peenting, the chirping of a pond full of spring peepers is one of my favorite sounds of spring. Known by its Latin name as Pseudacris crucifer, the spring peeper sports a dark “X” on its back, but, because of its coloration and being Michigan’s smallest frog (around 1-inch long), it can be hard to find among the swampy leaf litter lining a spring pond. Some estimates suggest that one male calls more than 13,000 times in a night.
Flora and Fungi: We live in an elevated wooded area not far from the hospital, so piles of snow still litter the ravine along the road. Soon that white will be replaced by the showy white that is a trademark of a springtime northern Michigan forest — trilliums. I never fail to smile when spotting a carpet of white in a stand of trees. It’s almost a reflex.
Don’t pick the fragile trilliums, but you can forage the other plant I closely associate with springtime, which also gives off a distinctive odor – wild leeks. These fragrant plants can be sustainably harvested, and there are varying opinions about how to do that. Some suggest only taking one of the three leaves on an individual plant; others say you can take the leaves plus a portion of the bulb below the soil as long as the roots are left. In either case, when you find a patch, selectively harvest and don’t dig up everything so it comes back next year.
Finally, apparently there is a certain type of fungus that generates quite a bit of emotion, angst, celebration, fisticuffs, and a dispensation in the breaking of the Ninth Commandment of not lying about where these things are found. Really, though, society’s fascination surrounding the mythical “morel mushroom” is an elaborate hoax — a la “The Truman Show” — designed to make old Jake feel utterly foolish in my inability to find a single one. It would’ve all been believable, but then Boyne City goes and hosts a “festival” for it, and, I mean, ppfftt … c’mon, guys, that’s a little over the top. I ain’t buyin’ it.
All manner of flora and fauna are stretching from their long — and, this year, extended — winter’s nap. Keep an open eye to the awakening world around you in this beautiful country, and, beyond simply raking the yard, get out there and enjoy spring.
Hummingbirds Return For some, the ultimate confirmation of spring comes in one of the smallest packages – the return of the ruby-throated hummingbird to feeders all across northern Michigan. There are several “hummingbird migration maps” online tracking the progress of the birds’ return trip north. As of this writing in early April, a handful of different maps had the northernmost sightings trickling into Ohio and Indiana. Late April to early May is when our friendly visitors begin chittering at us for their grub. Feeders can go up anytime now, but most target May 1. The best nectar solution is one quickly made yourself of 4 parts water to 1 part granulated sugar; dissolve the sugar in boiling water, let cool, and fill your feeder. No red dye, no sugar alternatives, no honey. If you do that in “cups,” you’ll typically be dumping out nectar as you clean your feeders every few days. I usually do a quarter-cup of sugar to one cup water for my single feeder. For fun and if you have birds that are both predictable and friendly, allowing you to get close to the feeder, set your camera to take slow motion video. Before it died, our digital camera turned five, real-time seconds into a one-minute video. You’ll be amazed to see the actual movement of those wings and tail and the bird’s musculature.