Spring Parade
The first few weeks of Spring — hazily defined as lasting from mid-March into early April — is one of my favorite times of the year. While the winter forest is a sleepy, quiet place and the summer is buzzing and lurching with the actives of the growing season, life in the early spring seems to take on a more organized, ceremonial pace. It’s a bit like a parade, with each participant arriving on the scene, taking its moment in the spotlight, then advancing once more into the tangle of the whole so as to make room for the next act — except instead of high school marching bands and pickup trucks full of little leaguers, the participants are birds, bugs, and flowers, arriving, emerging, and blooming in a semi-predictable order hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years in the making. The identity of the parade’s participants and the order of their arrival will vary depending on where exactly you are, adding to the fun. Just like the neighborhood across town doesn’t have that guy ...