Young Naturalists
10 Signs of Spring
Grab your notebook or smartphone and observe the world around you as the weather begins to warm.
Mary Hoff
When you wake from a good night’s sleep, do you leap out of bed ready to go, or do you take your time before getting up? When nature awakes from a long winter’s nap, it’s a gradual process. As the sun appears higher in the sky and the amount of daylight increases, water turns from ice or snow to flowing liquid. Plants and animals take their cues from these early signs of spring to blossom, build nests, and otherwise get ready for a busy summer season of growing and reproducing more of their kind.
The change from winter to spring shows that nature is never bored—or boring—as shifts in temperature and light affect plants and animals around us. The study of seasonal changes throughout the year has a name: phenology. When Minnesota welcomes springtime, many people who live here like to track the dates when spring-y things start to happen.
You can be a phenologist this spring, too. One way is to keep a notebook and record the changes you observe day by day. Another way is to write spring happenings on a calendar. You can even share your observations with others at journeynorth.org, a website that tracks seasonal events across North America. It can be fun to compare the dates from year to year and from place to place.
Here are 10 fun spring things to watch (and listen!) for as Minnesota warms up.
