Nature Note #102: Winter Thaw and Spring's Arrival?

This past week has certainly been telling me that spring is on the way with my earliest sighting of an Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) ever last Sunday, to seeing a Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) and a Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) at Cumberland Farms in Middleboro, and all the songbirds I've been hearing around the house too, it seems a sure sign that winter is coming to an end. Now when it comes to weather prediction and seasonal changes, the last thing I rely on is the perceived advice of a rodent. For those of you who don't know, I have a passionate disdain for woodchucks (Marmota monax) as they have made life difficult for the chickens by living under their shed and stealing their feed (which now costs $16 per bag making me even less happy to share the bounty with them). According to the rodent's forecast this year it would be the paradoxical claim of "six more weeks of winter" even though if the thing hadn't seen its shadow, it would have been six more weeks until spring. While this annoys me, don't get me started on robins....

Despite this, I know from the weather forecast that this week it will be in the mid 20s to low 30s (thanks polar vortex!) and will probably be a miserable time indeed. That hardly matters as I will be spending the week packing so I can begin my job as a seasonal teacher naturalist in Horsham, PA in March. I still can't believe that it was a year ago that I first headed down to New Jersey to begin the internship that would shape my career path. While I used my position as a summer camp counselor during college as a means to make money, I now see the environmental education field as a great place to start and make my way in the world. Even as I write, I can notice the disconnections people have with the natural world. People know more about foreign creatures from foreign lands than about the creatures living here at home and some don't even know how to deal with local wildlife that well either. While visiting Hager Pond in Marlboro last week, I watched as a couple in a car loudly honked their horn at the throng of ducks and geese that had gathered in the parking lot after having been given tons and tons of bread to eat. Upon seeing the car, they (predictably) swarmed around it looking for handouts. Sometimes I watch such things and all I can do is sigh. Maybe we'll learn one day...

However, today I did see something that made me feel that spring is truly on the way. On the maple tree near our chicken shed, I noticed what looked like a small black sunflower seed that had been attached to the tree. I soon noticed that above the black shell had small pink markings on a thorax before being topped by a small black dot. I knew then I was looking at the insect described by Kay Fairweather in her book Who's Who in the Natural World. It is called a Diurnal Firefly (Ellychnia corrusca) and being active in the daytime, lacks the glowing bum that make its cousins so famous. But what, you might ask, are they doing out in February? Well considering it is so warm out, they must think its time to be active once more. From reading the species description given on pages 26 and 27, they prefer to hang out on the bark of maples and will feed on the sap as it starts to run in the late winter and early spring.

If these little ones are any indicator, spring should be just around the corner! Lets hope that it comes soon.