The recent warming temperatures brought much melting and slush. And it also caused many Northlanders to look past this mid-winter break to the coming spring.
We're still in winter, but some changes are in the air, and we hear the morning "feebee" songs from chickadees and woodpeckers drum nearby. Squirrels and rabbits are becoming more active now as their breeding season gets closer; while the members of the dog family: foxes, coyotes and wolves are already far into their mating rituals.
Maybe the most noticeable of the pre-seasonal changes going on now are with the trees. Each year, during a thawing period in February, a couple of small trees respond in a way that demands our attention. The shrubby red-osier dogwoods would hardly be seen all year were it not for the branches turning bright red in mid- to late-winter sunlight. What was formerly just a group of small trees now appear bright red and add a glow to our morning commute.
But the traditional change we look for is the opening of the pussy willows. They vary in their wetland homes, but with enough searching after these mild times, we are likely to find them. And most of us don't just pass by. Many a North Country kitchen table holds twigs of these small willows by the end of February.
However, the trees have been planning for spring since way back last summer. With faith and hope of the warming season, they prepared abundant seeds that survive the cold times to germinate in the warmth. Many of these matured last fall and dropped, but others stayed on the branches all winter. Some of our most common trees: ash, box elder, birch alder and several conifers keep seeds on their twigs throughout the cold.
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With everything else that goes on in winter, we are not likely to even see these seeds. But during late winter, they often show up easily.
Our snow is still with us, though the snowpack has lessened by a lot. Mild days are followed by freezing nights, and the snow becomes crusty. Add a covering of the light snow that we frequently get during this dry month.
This fresh backdrop is a great place to view seeds that lost their arboreal grip and fell. They fall either as individual seeds or maybe with the mother cone. Opening wide, these winged seeds leave the cone home. It is not unusual to see winged ones on the snow with a cone nearby.
Most observers notice that the seeds of pine and spruce, when seen alone, look much like the samaras of maple. They look like miniature "maple helicopters." And like those of maple, they do fly in the wind, but they also persist on or under the snow until spring.
Tree seeds now seen on the snow tell us that we're not the only ones planning for the coming warmer times.
Larry Weber is author of the "Backyard Almanac" and "Butterflies of the Northwoods." He lives in Carlton County and teaches natural science at Duluth's Marshall School.
