First Sign of Spring

A few days ago, on my morning walk, I saw my first robin of spring. A few minutes later I saw my second. And a few minutes after that I saw my next dozen, a crowd of them flitting on the still-brown grass. And every day since, I see them everywhere, the prevailing harbinger of spring, returned from their winter in the woods. Robins don’t migrate south, but rather to the nearest forest where they had lived for millennia before humans migrated to the continent, built cities and then expanses of lawns that provided the robin with a convenient buffet of worms and insects in the manicured grass and grass roots. But when the snow falls and the ground freezes, the buffet closes, and the robins return to the forest and feeding on the insects in the bark of trees. So when the snow melts and the ground thaws, the robin is well-positioned to emerge and become the proverbial first sign of spring.

In the next week or so, though, we’ll no longer notice the muted robin as it recedes to the background in its gray and rust coloring, replaced by first the flowering hyacinth, crocus, daffodil, and then the more vivid yellow goldfinch, bright blue jay, sleek cedar waxwing. The grass will grow green, the trees will bud, leaf out, and bloom white, pink, purple, red. The robin will still be there. Just not as prominent as it is today.