It's March at last! So, spring will start very soon—on the 21st, in fact.
Actually, it's not so simple. Depending on who you talk to, there's a huge range of methods used to determine when spring starts.
The one most people probably think of is March 21st, which happens to be the day around which the vernal equinox happens. Some people prefer to specifically date the start of spring from the equinox, which falls on March 20th this year.
Going by the calendar, another way to do it would be to simply say spring starts on March 1st. In that case, yay! It is spring already.
But what if you prefer to pay attention to what the natural world is actually telling you about the changing seasons? For the purposes of this article, I will focus on the Willamette Valley, since that is where I live.
Maybe we can tell it's spring when the weather starts being sunny and pleasant. The only problem is that the weather here in the valley is like a moody high-schooler once March rolls around. A brilliant day of sunshine and temperatures in the mid-fifties can suddenly turn into a gray deluge the next day.
And let's not forget the year we had several inches of snow near the end of March. No, I'd say weather is a terrible way to tell the seasons around here.
So, let's try something else. Springtime means flowers, right? How about we say spring is when the flowers bloom? Sure, but which flowers?
If we go with the earliest flowers, such as camellias, spring would start in January. I don't think so!
Crocuses and daffodils seem like nice springy flowers. However, they bloom in February. I tend to consider February to be one of those iffy months that doesn't know what season it wants to be. I'm not really convinced that flowers are the way to go.
Birds! I like birds. Birds are nifty critters. Maybe they can tell us when spring is! Indeed, we have lots of options.
First of all, you can say it's spring when the birds start singing. As with flowers, some birds start in February, which I don't want to think of as spring. I'm not ready to have spring starting in February, to be honest. Plus, there are even some birds that sing all winter long—how are you supposed to judge spring from that?
Then you can see when birds start leaving to go north. That, sadly, is also mostly in February. Bye-bye geese and ducks and rough-legged hawks! I'll miss you! But I don't think spring is here yet.
Let's try looking at swallows. Around my house, the violet-green swallows tend to show up in late March or early April. Honestly, I'm not sure that I'm willing to wait until April to start talking about spring. I think of Easter as a spring holiday, but sometimes it's in March. If the swallows aren't back by then, Easter could be a winter holiday!
Think about it. I know that the season isn't the point of Easter, but western culture has inextricably linked the two. Easter in winter would be like Thanksgiving in summer. Just no.
How, then, do we resolve the issue of determining the start of spring? I would like to present my preferred method: Watch for the first turkey vulture to arrive, usually mid-to-late March. In my book, it simply isn't spring until the vultures return.
This isn't all that weird, I hope. Surely I'm not the only person who thinks of new life and sunshine when vultures are around?
