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In those days Spring came early, so that when Easter fell on March 31 there would already be crocuses and daffodils in bloom around the house, and mourning doves combing last year’s grasses for seeds. The Easter bunny had hidden the very eggs we’d dyed the day before, and we were out with our baskets looking for them down in the leaf litter and up along the window ledges we were too short to reach. A Kentucky cardinal sang from the shrubs nearby.
When I awoke to this Maine morning the cardinal was singing still, along with a song sparrow and a robin. At 6:38 AM the temperature was 33 degrees with a forecast of snow - just a sprinkling. There’s not a flower in sight, unless you count the colt’s-foot that’s just getting started, or the pussy willow catkins down by the Hidden Pond. It’s boot-sucking mud season in the North. There are no bunnies here, not any time of year, and daffodils won’t be up and blooming until sometime in April.
Things I have a hard time adjusting to: the late start to Spring, daffodils in April, and the fact that the Kentucky cardinal I grew up hearing (the state bird there) is actually and officially a Northern cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis. Audubon called it the Cardinal Grosbeak. “In the western country {i.e. Kentucky] a great number are found as far up on the Ohio as the city of Cincinnati . . . .” Once a Southern bird, it has extended its range northward and now winters all the way into southern Canada.
Things I love to do in a Maine mud season: a walkabout to make mental notes of the multiflora rose that is first to green up and still easy to get at; watch robins foraging in the driveway; listen for peepers and wood frogs. I haven’t heard any yet, but they’ll be along soon and the rain garden is full of water to welcome them. Most welcome of all: the cardinal who started to sing in February.
No matter the date or time, my favorite place to spend an Easter Sunday is outside, and that’s where I’m headed now. It’s warmed up some, and I know where to look for the jonquils’ first shoots. I wish you all a Happy Easter if you celebrate that, and a Happy Spring wherever you may be.
The image and description from Audubon’s Birds of America is a fascinating read. I did not know that Cardinal Grosbeak was one of the common names.
This page brings us up-to-date on The Northern Cardinal.
The small painting up top is of my father, age 2 1/2, with his Easter bunnies. In 1914, when even in Kentucky the trees were still bare, Easter fell on April 12, which just happens to be my birthday. Strange but true.
“Welcome Happy Morning” was my favorite hymn in the long-ago days when I had to go to Sunrise Service. This rendition from St John’s Anglican Church in Detroit has a similar vibe.
Another thing I look forward to is the return of the woodcocks. They may already be here and I just haven’t heard their peent peent at night. Here from the Archives is what I wrote about them last year.
And a note: As we close out my Substack anniversary month of March, the archives remain free to all readers for another week, but will revert to “available to paid subscribers” next weekend.
Thank you for your support! The daffodils, the cardinals, and I are most grateful.