Trail Time – Second Spring
The sun is shining and the snow is melting fast here on the Gunflint Trail. It was raining earlier today — a good rain, and more is pouring down right now — and there’s thunder! Oh it’s a good show tonight.
There was mud under my feet and water running through the culverts this afternoon and the robins were singing. What do you think? Is it Spring now? Are we there yet? It’s rare to have a prolonged spring here in the north. Usually it’s a fast transition from winter to bug season. What I’ve observed is that spring comes many times to the northlands. I would count this as our second spring. First spring came and went a few weeks ago and was followed by a three-day storm leaving us with two feet of snow. So this second spring might be brief — and we may get a third and a fourth spring — but when the sun is shining, wow, it is glorious and the sky is wearing a very different blue than it does in winter.
Even before I went searching for signs of spring today, a robin woke us with its loud dawn song. It was in the woods out of sight but very much in hearing. I was reading about the robins’ vocalizations and their musical song is territorial; the dawn song is a more animated, excited version. That song has been described as “cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up.” It’s a string of ten or so whistle-like tones, with the notes going up and down in pitch and a pause before the robin sings again, letting the world know that this is their patch of earth, their tree, maybe their nest eventually. Their “cuck” and “tut” calls are contact notes used when they communicate with each other. The high-pitched call “Seee” or “peeek” lets us know there is a predator, nearby, like a hawk. They also make a “chirrr” that sounds like a whinny or chuckle.
While the robin makes itself known, there’s a sign of spring that takes some searching to find. It is the blossom of the beaked hazelnut shrub. I spotted a few in a sunny spot along our road. It’s always a high point of the season for me to see the hazel in flower. The bloom is a tiny thing, less than an 1/8” long but its color is one of the most flamboyant colors in the woods — a spray of beautiful deep magenta threads peek out from a tiny brown bud. Those threads aren’t petals, they are called styles; They are a tube-like structure that holds up the stigma and leads down to the ovary — these are female flowers. The male flowers — catkins — grow on the same branch. The hazelnuts will form and be ready to harvest in August or September. By the time I see they are ready, they are usually gone two seconds later. The squirrels and chipmunks snatch them up very quickly. The nuts are very nutritious — bears, blue jays, and woodpeckers eat them too. The catkins are an important winter food for grouse and the twigs are grazed by rabbits and moose.
As I wandered today, I saw green emerging from under the snow even on the north slopes. The lichens, mosses and the ferns known as Polypody amaze me every year with their ability to stay green throughout the freezing months buried under snow.
I also spotted snow melting in small depressions in the woods, creating areas known as vernal pools. These seasonal wetlands, also called ephemeral pools, are important breeding grounds for wood frogs, boreal chorus frogs and salamanders. The salamanders that occur in our region are the red-backed and the blue-spotted salamander. I have never seen a salamander in the north woods but I sure would love to! The pools are dry most of the year, so they don’t have fish in them, fish that would eat eggs and larva.
Vernal pools are also an important foraging habitat for many reptiles, mammals and birds. I plan on keeping my eye on these particular pools to see if frogs and salamanders grow in them. In later spring, your ears can tell you where to look for these pools; listen for wood frogs calling and follow their song to the pool. Although you might have to stop and start a few times, because in my experience, as soon as the frogs hear you, they stop singing. But be patient and then move a little closer and maybe you can find this spring treasure — this magical treasure which appears and then disappears, much like spring itself.
