Pussy willows, the fluffy, silver-coated flower buds of that graceful shrub, now ornament the low grounds and stream borders. In our northern U.S. states the month of March is the time when we hear the earliest of our frogs, the wood frog, the spring peeper, and the chorus-lover. Farther south these amphibians may have come out earlier. In sheltered places, the catkins of the alders and the birches are dangling, waved gently by the wind. In our northern and middle states the sap in the sugar maples is running freely, and sap buckets are in use. North of the range of the maple, the sap of the birch used to yield sugar to the Indian, while the box-elder, which is really a maple, was a favorite within its range.
Ducks and geese, many of them already mated, are leaving their wintering grounds in southern swamps, and are pushing northward toward their nesting. Early flying bees are abroad. Besides our spring flowers, as generally regarded, the catkins of our birches, alders and willows are the attractions that call to their labors many of these winged messengers. Butterflies that have wintered beneath loose flakes of bark, or in other sheltered places, now flit about the more open woods whenever the sunshine is warm. The earliest and most common is probably the widely spread mourning cloak, but several other species, notably certain reddish ones with jagged borders to their wings, are also frequently seen.
It is hard to realize that these delicate creatures can survive, practically unsheltered, the rigor of our northern winters. Winter bird visitors from the North, even the smaller and more delicate kinds, are leaving us and working back toward the Arctic. Though they enjoy our wealth of seed-bearing plants, which enable them to survive in comparative comfort the season that threatens death, they long for the land of their birth. March winds, working in company with low temperatures, which make brittle the twigs, subject some of our trees to a process of pruning.
In small ponds which are fed by springs, whose water is somewhat tempered, the earlier of the water-hibernating turtles may venture to the surface. The horny scale-like fringes which come on the toes of ruffed grouse in winter, and which enable them to walk on the snow without sinking deeply, have now begun to disappear. The individual scales simply drop off. Now begin the spring songs of our woodpeckers, their persistent and rapid drumming on old dry limbs. Each species has its own characteristic rhythm, as distinctive in style as is the vocal song of more musical birds. In the cool evening twilight, the shy woodcock sings his rare love song, and doubtless it has charms unknown to human ears, for his suit is usually successful.
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