NATURE: A Month of Firsts

Clockwise from top left: clockwise from top left: bloodroot flowers; A Dogwood flower; a Wood Thrush; a Christmas fern unfurling; a male Rubythroated Hummingbird. Round-lobed Hepatica; windflower; trout lily

Spring Beauty a month of FIRSTS

For Mother Nature, April seals the deal on spring

words and photographs by MIKE DUNN

NATURE

April is the time when the Piedmont turns green. Sure, you get those warm days in February, and March shows promise for the winterweary, but it’s April that seals the deal. This month, Nature turns the faucet of spring on full blast. Many naturalists I know enjoy recording their seasonal observations, especially the first-of-year sightings, which we call “FOYs.” But even those that might not call themselves naturalists notice those firsts, like the earliest spring wildflowers to open, the inaugural butterflies in the yard, or the building chorus of birdsong through an open window in the morning. Even if it is just in your subconscious, these firsts indicate that change is happening and, for people like me, that our favorite season really is upon us. I have been a journal-keeper off and on over the years. On a recent warm day, I got the urge to look back at some of my notes and noticed a tendency to record the FOYs here in the woods at our home. I was struck by the consistency in the timing of certain natural events: the days that Redbud and Flowering Dogwood showed their blooms, the moment of leaf-out (the date when leaves open up or ferns unfurl). But it turns out my notes indicate that I’m a bit biased toward animal FOYs. Most of my FOY observations are about insects and birds. One of the most notable FOYs for me is not a sighting at all, but a sound: the melodious call of the Wood Thrush. As soon as the calendar says April, I listen every morning for their distinctive flute-like song as they return from their wintering grounds. My records go back to 1998, and the first thrush song in our woods happened anywhere from April 7 to April 19, with most occurring in the second week of April. Looking at these notes, I also noticed a steady relationship between the first Wood Thrush song and that of another forest dweller, the Ovenbird. I consistently heard the emphatic teacher, teacher, TEAcher song of this cryptic, ground-nesting warbler a few days before the musical ee-oh-lay of the

NATURE

Wood Thrush. That’s pretty remarkable, considering these birds are potentially migrating over a thousand miles to get to our woods to nest. Another winged wonder that many people notice are Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. I usually put out my feeders the last week of March, but all of my recent hummingbird FOYs have been the first or second week of April. Male hummingbirds arrive first in our area from their winter homes in Central America. They set up territories to defend and await the females, which typically arrive a few weeks later. Butterflies also received a lot of attention in my FOY notes, especially the tiny Falcate Orangetip. This beauty is one that may not be familiar to many people, as it is a woodland species that flies for

only a couple of weeks in April, mating and laying eggs, before disappearing for another year. But for me, it has a special place in the spring These firsts indicate that play. They are specialists and lay eggs change is happening only on plants in and, for people like me, the mustard family. On our property that our favorite season that includes the is really upon us. wildflower Cutleaf Toothwort and yard “weed,” Hairy Bittercress. Caterpillars are difficult to find, but last year I did manage to raise and release a couple of butterflies after watching adults lay eggs in the yard. It turns out there is a lot of scientific interest in these types of observations. Phenology is the study of the timing of the life-cycle events in plants and animals like flowering, leaf-out, reproduction, and migration. There is a recent upsurge in the interest of plant and animal phenology since these observations are useful for tracking the biological responses to climate change. If you enjoy making and recording your nature observations and want to help scientists learn more about our changing environment, you can join a number of citizen science projects documenting seasonal changes. A wonderful long-standing program on the northward migration of spring can be found at Journey North (journeynorth. org). By following people’s observations online, you can actually track the realtime northward movement of springtime indicators like hummingbirds and Monarch butterflies. Nature’s Notebook (usanpn.org) is another great program tracking nature’s annual cycles. Whether you do it for science or just for fun, I encourage you to take time this month to get outside and observe changes happening in your natural neighborhood. What FOYs will you find?

Through May 8, 2022

The exhibition is organized by Aperture Foundation, New York and Kwame S. Brathwaite. The exhibition Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite and the accompanying Aperture publication are made possible, in part, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Photographic Arts Council Los Angeles. Major Sponsors

The Cathleen and Ray McKinney Exhibition Fund

PLAN YOUR VISIT reynolda.org/beautiful

Reynolda House Museum of American Art Winston-Salem, N.C.

Kwame Brathwaite, Grandassa Model onstage, Apollo Theater, Harlem, circa 1968; from Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful (Aperture, 2019). Courtesy the artist and Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles.

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Monarch butterfly

PIEDMONT FOYs

Some favorite arrivals to watch for in spring.

LATE MARCH/EARLY APRIL: Morel mushrooms; male Ruby-throated Hummingbirds arrive; Falcate Orangetip butterflies appear; Flowering Dogwood blooms; Spotted Salamander eggs hatch; Luna Moths appear; American Toads calling.

MID-APRIL: Monarch butterflies arrive; many species of swallowtail butterflies appear; Jack-in-the-pulpit blooms; many woodland fern species unfurl their fronds; Pinxter Azaleas bloom; Bluebird babies begin to hatch.

LATE APRIL/EARLY MAY: Woodland termites mating flights; Cope’s Gray tree frogs calling: Rose-breasted Grosbeaks migrate through our area; Swallowtails laying eggs; first fireflies appear.

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