Beginning of Spring

     To me, spring begins in southeastern Pennsylvania sometime during the first couple of weeks in February.  This year it started on February 6.  I base those observations on the growth of specific plants and the activities of certain kinds of birds and mammals.
     But spring, in a way, begins even earlier than that.  Each pair of great horned owls in this area begin their courtship and twilight hooting to each other during December, climaxing with egg-laying sometime in January.  Red-tailed hawks and bald eagles start their courtships in January, with egg-laying by the middle of February.  And in January, red foxes search day and night for mates.  This is the best time of the year to see them during the day.
     And, starting in mid-January, the periods of daylight get noticeably longer by two minutes each succeeding day.  Birds register that increase in daylight in their brains, which stirs their hormones.  Certain kinds of ducks, geese and swans, and blackbirds, start migrating in February, though they don't get far at first because of winter conditions farther north. 
     By early February, clusters of skunk cabbage hoods, each one of which harbors a fleshy ball with several tiny flowers on it, emerge from mud or inch-deep water on wooded bottomlands.  Those hoods create a bit of heat that help push them through ice and snow.
     Early in February, many snowdrop plants are in bloom.  Each plant has grass-like leaves, and tiny, white blooms that do resemble drops of snow.  However, when mature and open, those blossoms look like small bells.  One can almost hear them tinkle in the breeze.
     By mid-February, multitudes of winter aconite plants have cheery, yellow blooms on lawns, flower gardens, or wherever else they spread to by bulbs and seeds.  Each plant has a single blossom and a fringe of tiny leaves below it. 
     On warm afternoons in February, males of a few kinds of permanent resident, local birds respond to their raging hormones by singing cheerily.  Mourning doves, northern cardinals, tufted titmice and song sparrows sing lustfully on lawns and along forest edges.  It's always a joy to me to hear these songsters' beautiful ditties after a winter of no bird song. 
     By late February, secretive, isolated pairs of Canada geese and mallard ducks are seen looking for nesting sites.  Sometime in early March, females of each species are beginning to lay clutches of eggs in grassy, sheltered places on the ground near water.  By the third week in March, those clutches are complete and incubation commences, even if there is snow on the ground.  And by the third week in April, and a little later, the cute, fluffy goslings and ducklings hatch and are ready to walk, swim and eat within 24 hours of hatching.  
     During February, raccoons, skunks and muskrats start their courtships.  At this time, one can see an occasional coon, skunk or muskrat about in daylight searching for a mate, though all these mammals are usually nocturnal.  And at this time of year, some of these mammals, probably males, mostly, are killed on roads because of their traveling over unfamiliar areas in search of mates, but only finding death.
     The elaborate and intriguing courtship rituals of male American woodcocks start on mild evenings in February, just after sunset.  Woodcocks live in secondary woods on bottomlands where they poke their long beaks into mud to extract and eat earthworms and other invertebrates.  At dusk from about mid-February to the end of April, each male woodcock flies out of a bottomland thicket to a bare spot in the ground of a nearby opening, such as a field bordering a woods.  There each male stands upright with his long bill on his chest and vocally "beeps" for about a minute.  Then he takes off in spiral flight upward, his wings twittering rhythmically all the way.  At the height of his climb, he levels off and sings verbally for a few seconds, then plunges to the bare spot on the ground.  He repeats that performance several times an evening until hunger or an interested female woodcock interrupts him.
     Though I say spring starts the second week in February, I know snow and cold can still prevail at times.  But spring has its way, too.  To me, spring is born from the chilly womb of winter and winter and spring constantly push against each other.  Some days in February winter wins and other days spring does.  But life slowly moves toward spring all that while until that wonderful season is undeniable by everyone.