Trout lilies.

You may hear your first spring peepers as early as late January, and a daffodil or two may pop through the first week of February. The former is assuring, yet you still know that cold weather lies ahead (and this year, 14 inches of snow). They don’t even wait for Imbolc, for pete’s sake. The latter, the daffodils, carries with it an asterisk: it’s not a native plant; rather an ornamental that doesn’t abide by local rules of seasonality. Ah, but the trout lily: spring’s true first responder. Once the trout lily raises its lovely maroon-striped yellow petals to the sky, there’s no turning back.

For six years, I was fortunate to live in Hillsborough, where, early on I discovered the Poet’s Walk at Ayr Mont, a preserve that grew out of a former plantation. Today, while the focal point is the Federal style plantation house, the hidden gem is the mile-long Poet’s Walk, a natural surface path through maintained meadow and bottomland forest. 

This time of year, the half mile that borders the Eno River through floodplain hardwoods offers one of the best sites around to catch the first trout lilies of spring. Alas, since moving from Hillsborough four years ago, I’ve yet to find as reliable a source for my trout lilies as the Poet’s Walk. One year since I was lucky enough to stumble across some along the banks of the Cape Fear River near Dunn. Another, it wasn’t until May, in the Pisgah National Forest. Two years, I went without completely. That wasn’t going to happen this year.

I pulled into the half-full gravel lot around 11:30 on a Sunday morning and set out down the trail, which begins through a manicured meadow. A third of a mile in the trail entered forest and I was surprised by the sight of winter aconite at the base of an oak just off trail. An ornamental, but none the less, a “harbinger of spring,” as my PictureThis app informed me.

In another hundred yards, I slowed; here, the trail flattened and it was here that the spring wildflower show traditionally began. Sure enough, a half mile in I spotted my first yellow fronds. Five in all, all still bundled together. Sunlight had only recently penetrated this part of the forest floor; there was no reason to completely unfurl and gather spartan energy. 

I walked slowly and saw more trout lilies cautiously casting about. I also glimpsed a handful of spring beauties, usually the second wildflower to emerge along the Poet’s Walk. In a week or two, their delicate round petals would dominate the landscape.

I spent 45 minutes slowly walking back and forth along this stretch, hopeful that the prolonged sunlight would elicit a burst of yellow petals. They may have opened a bit, but it would be mid- to late-afternoon until they truly unfurled. And I had a house-load of spring chores to do. 

No matter. Spring, for me, was officially underway. 

* * *

Find spring

Looking to find signs of spring? A few thoughts.

“Wildflower Walks to Take in the Triangle,” Walter Magazine. Five popular destinations recommended by a guy we know. Find it here.

Eno River Association Spring Wildflower Hike Series. For as long as I can recall, the Eno River Association has been conducting guided walks along the Eno. The scheduled is based on years of observation: if the ERA thinks there’s going to be wildflower action at Penny’s Bend Nature Preserve on March 15, you can bet there’s going to be a show. Learn more here.

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Actually, it’s a bit late.

Here’s how my spring countdown unfolds, beginning with …

Imbolc, Feb. 1. This traditional Gaelic observance marks the mid-point of winter, halfway between the winter solstice (Dec. 21) and the spring equinox (March 20).

Daffodil. I can’t call this the first wildflower of the season because the daffodil is an ornamental, embraced by early settlers because as soon as its cheery yellow leaves popped through the ground, they knew spring was nigh. Note: when you see a daffodil in the wild there’s a good chance you’ll find signs of an old homestead nearby. Weather dependent, the daffodil generally makes its first appearance between the last week of January and the second week of February.

Spring peeper. To me, this chorus frog is typically the first legitimate — that is, natural — sign of spring. They spend the winter hunkered down near a vernal pool — a depression that typically only contains water during the winter rains. A good rain coupled with warming weather rouses the spring peeper. I’ve heard spring peepers as early as mid-January; this year, my first “hearing” was on Feb. 17.

February 10. Pitchers and catchers report. When I was in second grade at Bellview Elementary school I spent an entire music class staring out the window at a ball diamond painted in grays and browns; would I ever again see the lush green outfield that had disappeared in October? The only thing that kept me going was a small blurb I’d read that morning in the Denver Post: “Pitchers and Catchers report today.” This year, pitchers and catchers, the first baseball players to start training for the upcoming season, reported on Feb. 10.

February 20. First spring training games of the season. Nothing says spring more than listening to a Rockies game from Salt River Fields in Arizona on the app.

Trout lilies, spring beauties.  Like pitchers and catchers, these are typically the first wildflowers we see report for spring in the Piedmont. Their appearance depends entirely on sunlight and warmth: I’ve seen both as early as Jan. 27, I’ve seen them as late as, well, as now (still waiting). Blame the lingering winter weather — but this weekend, with sun and temperatures in the 60s forecast, keep an eye peeled for both, especially in floodplains dominated by hardwoods.

March 8. Daylight Saving Time begins. Not coming home in the dark really makes it feel like spring.

March 20. The spring equinox, when there’s as much daylight as dark, marks the official start of spring.

Let the countdown begin!

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True, the shortest day of the year, in terms of actual daylight, is Dec. 21, when we’re down to just 9 hours, 42 minutes and 59 seconds of daylight. However, this Saturday (Dec. 6), the sun sets at 5:04:52 p.m. (in north central North Carolina). But on Sunday, it goes down a full two-hundredths of a second later, at 5:04:54 p.m. Yup, on Sunday we start seeing more afternoon daylight. OK, maybe you won’t actually see it, but it will be there. You’ll have slightly more luck noticing the difference by Saturday, Dec. 13, when the sun will set at 5:05:49, more than a full second later than this Sunday. 

Granted, you can’t do much with that second — maybe get in an extra step of daylight on the trail. But you can rejoice in the psychological boost of simply knowing the sun is setting later. (For you morning people the sun won’t start rising later until Jan. 7!)

When will we start noticing a later-setting sun? On Jan. 7 it will set at 5:21 p.m. (about 16 minutes later than on Dec. 7), On Feb. 7 it sets at 5:52:47 (about 47 minutes later), and on March 7 at 6:20:27 p.m. (an hour and 15 minutes later). FYI, Daylight Saving Time kicks in on Sunday, March 8: sunset that day will be at 7:21:22). You’ll really notice the difference then.

Need another milestone to get you through winter? Imbolc, the midpoint of winter and a day of celebration in many cultures, is Feb. 1.

For the time being, though, take solace in the fact we will have more afternoon sunlight starting Sunday. Make the most of it.

* * *

Count the seconds

Follow the return of sunlight at sunrise-sunset.org.

The post Dec. 7, and other dates to get you through winter appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

When landscape design historian/educator/author Kathryn Aalto moved her family from Seattle to England several years ago, she remembers looking down on the approaching English landscape as their plane descended and thinking,  “How am I going to raise my children here?”
Aalto was used to the more untamed land of the Pacific Northwest. Below her was a highly manicured rolling countryside, the result of several centuries of human domination.

“I needed to get a sense of place,” she told a gathering last night at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, the latest stop on her U.S. book tour. “I discovered that walking was going to do it.”
It did, resulting in part in her new book, “The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh.” In it, she casts a naturalist’s eye on the 6,000-acre Ashdown Forest in southeast England, the inspiration for A.A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood, the setting for Christopher Robin’s childhood adventures with Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and the rest of the magical menagerie.
Aalto talked about the English countryside of bracken, gorse and heather. She talked of the “nibblers” — the goats, the sheep, the Belted Galloways — that manicure the landscape. She showed a photo of the expansive walnut tree that inspired Pooh’s home. And she shared from her research insights into Milne, his son Christopher Robin, and illustrator E.H. Shepard.

Her sizable audience was, as expected, most interested in Pooh and his world. But there was one sidebar to the main topic that drew a good deal of interest: Aalto’s walking, and the fact you can walk anywhere in England: the 267-mile Pennine Way, which runs south to north, into Scotland; the 102-mile Cotswold Way, offering insight into the English countryside; and dozens of other nationwide trails.
She spoke of the country’s “legal right to roam,” a legacy of coming into being long before the automobile, when walking was the only way to get around. If a walking path has been in existence long enough, the public has a right to walk it, private ownership be danged. A stark contrast to America, where vast distances and a desire to quickly lay claim to and conquer the land meant opting for the fastest means of transport currently available, has created a starkly different attitude toward perambulating.
“We have greenways,” one woman in the crowd commented.
“And they’re lovely,” said Aalto.
“Yes,” agreed the woman wistfully. “I just wish we had more.”
The greenway boom in the Triangle — with nearly 250 miles currently, up about 500 percent in the past two decades — can give a sense of the English walking experience. Add to that the north-south passage of the emerging 2,900-mile East Coast Greenway (one day making it possible to walk north to Canada, south to Key West, Florida), and the 1,150-mile Mountains-to-Sea Trail (walk west to Clingman’s Dome, east to Jockey’s Ridge), and an American-style walking vacation may be closer than we think.
That will go a long way toward helping more of us discover what Kathryn Aalto did when she arrived in England.
A sense of place.

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Sunday, leading a hike in Panthertown Valley in far western North Carolina, there was no doubt about what was blocking the trail just 10 feet ahead. The markings may have been a bit murky, but the rattle sure wasn’t.

For only the second time in 33 years of hiking in these parts I had encountered an iconic resident of the mountains. I spread my arms to stop the group and announced, “You folks are in luck — that’s a timber rattler.” There was mixed reaction about the luckiness of our encounter.

You didn’t have to be a herpetologist to know we were looking at a timber rattlesnake. Despite its darker-than-usual hue, the authoritative rattle served as both accurate calling card and fair warning.

That’s not always the case with snakes, though, which is why, at the start of summer I like to rerun this post about how to go about identifying both snakes and birds.

When it comes to snakes and birds, I don’t expend a lot of my remaining gray storage memorizing types and species. Two reasons: One, there are thousands of species to begin with, and two, the same critter can look completely different depending on various factors:

Sex. Male birds generally are more colorful than females (the cardinal).

Location: Corn snakes throughout much of North Carolina tend to be mostly brown or gray; in the Coastal Plain, they’re bright orange.

Age: Adults of most species may have completely different coloration than they do as juveniles.

When it comes to snakes, the only thing I try to remember is whether ones are harmful. This one, I knew, was one of the state’s venomous six. But for the less obvious to identify, I turn to the
the “Snakes of North Carolina Online Identification System” run by the Davidson College Herpetology Laboratory.
The site asks 11 questions about your snake, starting with “Snake Length,” and a reminder that it’s common to overestimate length. That caused me to think, then scale back from 3 feet to 2. Other questions:
Location Where Found: Mountains (easy enough, out of six obvious choices from the drop-down menu).
Body Form: “Moderate,” “Slender” and “Stocky” are the options, with definitions of each to help. Mine was definitely “Stocky” (“thicker than a pencil”).
Scale type: This is where the “I don’t know” default came in handy; I didn’t get anywhere close enough to tell if they were “Smooth” or “Keeled”.
Pattern: Banded.
Main Background Color: Black.
Belly Color: Again with the default (who’s going to roll over a live snake — and the questionnaire wisely advises you not to).
Distinctive Characteristics: “Scared the bejeezus out of me” wasn’t an option.
Time of Day: Day (vs. Night).
Behavior: “Smells bad?” Who was I to judge after six hours on the trail?
Found in Water? No.
The site suggested it was either a timber rattler or a northern watersnake. Had I needed additional confirmation I could have  visited the Snakes of North Carolina Web site.

But again, no confirmation. My elevated heart rate, still up as I drove home, was all the confirmation I needed.

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