Outdoors Column | Les Winkeler: Cherishing spring in Southern Illinois - The Southern
Is there a better place to spend spring than in Southern Illinois?
For the record, that question is rhetorical. The obvious answer is, “Of course not.”
And, it’s not just because spring is the season of rebirth and change, it’s the pace at which things change.
Summer can feel like a rut. Television meteorologists could record a weather segment in mid-June -- “Tomorrow we’re going to see blistering heat and uncomfortable humidity” -- and play it daily through the end of August.
A similar recording could be made for January and February.
And, the world changes very little through the height of summer and winter.
The opposite is true in the spring. Don’t blink your eyes or you’ll miss something.
Remember this year’s daffodils? They’re history. While mowing the lawn last week I noticed a few remaining petals from my neighbor’s dogwood tree. For one glorious week our red bud tree was in full bloom just a few feet from that dogwood.
At this moment, the iris in our flower garden are making a bold statement. In two weeks, the blooms that remain with be tattered and well past their prime.
I’m not sure if it’s me, a side-effect of aging, or both, but this spring really seems to have flown by. Perhaps it’s a reaction to last year when state parks and public places were closed due to the pandemic, but 2021 is sprinting by.
I drove to Glen O. Jones Lake late last week. It seems like just yesterday farmers were tilling the rich, black dirt east of Harrisburg. When I drove by those same fields last Thursday the soil was already coming alive with emergent corn plants stretching to the horizon.
Overall, the greening of the world seems like it was on an accelerated pace this year. One day we marveled at the emergent buds on hardwood trees and now our cars are sticky with oak pollen and maple squirts litter the sidewalks.
And, in a normal year, the spring bird migration is a trickle. You go out and add a new spring migrant every day for a couple weeks. This year, it was more like the swarm you experience when they open the gates at Disneyworld on a holiday weekend.
There must have been an express train from the tropics this year. I added 20 new species in two days last week.
By the way, that’s not a complaint. It was a thrilling experience.
The constant change, the fast pace of change, those are two of the best reasons to savor spring. It’s like working at a newspaper, every day is different. It’s unpredictable, except in the fact that a daily adrenaline rush is inevitable.
Experiencing spring is experiencing life.
Open your eyes. Take a deep breath. If it’s spring, it’s a great day to be alive.
LES WINKELER is the outdoors writer for The Southern Illinoisan. Contact him at les@winkelerswingsandwildlife.com, on Twitter @LesWinkeler.
2021-05-08 13:00:00Z
https://thesouthern.com/outdoors/outdoors-column-les-winkeler-cherishing-spring-in-southern-illinois/article_e17371e4-2166-52bd-a26d-e1f1510a9756.html
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