The Mast-Head: Marking Spring Arrivals

The red-winged blackbirds returned to Cranberry Hole Road this week, announcing themselves by their rusty, spring-sounding calls from hiding places among the scrub. It seems far too soon.

For years, I have taken note of the emergence of spring peeper frogs and the arrival of osprey, writing the date I first notice them each year on the wall next to the basement stairs. Over time, the older markings have become faded, so even with a bright light and my reading glasses, they are difficult to make out. One of these days I intend to copy the dates onto something more permanent before they whisp away completely.

Keeping track of nature’s seasonal comings and goings is a way of trying to slow if not stop time, I think. As we get older, we are reassured that the cycles go on, changing subtly from year to year maybe, but plowing ahead indifferent to us. 

Each day on the beach in front of the house, through the winter, gulls and shorebirds walk, heads down, looking for something to eat. In the brambles, cardinals lurk, picking at hard berries as gaudily colored as they. The red-wings strip seed heads from the phragmites and wait for insect larvae that will begin to hatch in a couple of weeks. Wild turkeys strut, the males competing with their tall brown and gold fans for a chance at the hens’ affections. 

The forecasters say that a storm is coming by the weekend, a northeaster. The red-wings, here already and getting a jump on the season, will just hunker down in the swamp, with instinctual surety that they have not returned a minute too soon.