Nature's Springtime Families
By Carol J. Spears

The vernal equinox, March 21, ushers in the spring season, a delicate time of the earth's exquisite synch-ronicity. In nature, timing is everything. Spring challenges plants and animals with its unpredictable weather vagaries in this period of transition between winter's dark and summer's light. The ultimate natural families – the animals of our wild forests, ponds and backyards – have a number of ways in which they use spring as a time to ensure the successful birth and growth of their offspring. Rather than the seasonal warmth, it is the increasing length of daylight that stimulates this array of breeding behaviors. This is because the sun's light cycle is more of a stabilizing influence to the environment than is the temperature fluctuations that occur from year to year.

Above the Earth
Probably the most noticeable of nature's families that can be observed in the spring are myriad song birds that grace our woods and fields. In early- and mid-spring these birds busily begin setting up breeding and nesting territories, creating the ethereal bird-symphony that is such a gift to our hearts. Only the male bird sings, warning other males of the same species to stay away from its personal breeding territory, while at the same time attracting females. In late spring the females spend weeks incubating newly laid eggs, insuring the young will be hatched at just the right time of the year when it is warm enough to have an abundant supply of high-protein insects for their meals. We do not hear as much singing in late spring into summer, as the birds' silence during egg incubation is an instinctual strategy to avoid bringing attention of lurking predators to vulnerable nests.

On the Earth
While birds spend the spring, with its unpredictable weather fluctuations, nourishing their offspring within the protection of the incubated egg, mammal mothers spend spring fostering newly born young with their own reliable supply of milk. The baby mammals grow exponentially by nursing on the highly nutritious, high-fat content mother's milk. By being born in the spring, the mammal babies' teeth and digestive systems will be ready to munch on whole, solid plant and animal food when the summer brings a profusion of insects and plants.

In Northeast Ohio, baby deer, fox, rabbits, raccoon, squirrel, opossum, skunk, beaver and the occasional bear are typically safely hidden in dens, holes in the ground and nests or concealed through cryptic camouflage. The mothers must live and produce milk for their youngsters from body fat stored in the fall or by foraging on the meager springtime plants and over-wintering grubs and insects. It is extremely critical for humans to honor nature's way of doing things in the spring by not interfering with the mothers and babies. It is a rare treat to observe the well hidden young. However, if we do, we cannot assume that they are abandoned and need our good intentioned help; their mothers are nearby and will return to properly care for the offspring.

By mid- to late-spring the healing green foliage colors return to our spot of the earth. Grasses, trees and shrubs unfurl to the increased sunlight as they draw up water from the thawed earth, once again able to photosynthesize after the dark, quiet time of winter. In the late spring, plants begin to bud, ready to open their flowers at just the right time, when it is warm enough to entice insect pollinators into their blossoms for food, resulting in the plant's pollination and next year's generation. And the insects, the nutritional keystone for so many of the other forms of animal life on earth, bide their time during the spring as they move through their multiple life stages of larvae and pupae. They become adults during the brief months in the consistent warmth of the summer sun and then breed to perpetuate their own families.

Beneath the Earth
One of the most overlooked phenomena of spring's natural families is the amphibians, critters that are unable to internally regulate their body temperature. Ancient animals, the first of earth's vertebrates (animals with a backbone) to conquer the rigors of life on land, with moist, smooth skin amphibians remain vulnerable to dehydrating effects of terrestrial existence, never able to leave water completely. Amphibians almost unanimously are tied to water to breed, as their eggs do not have protective shells or fluid to keep them moist and provide nutrition. Ohio's prolific ponds, marshes and streams are amphibian heaven.

It is truly spring when the sweet, silver-bell tones of the spring peepers (a species of frogs found in marshes) ring out. Their calls can be heard in early- to mid-March. Soon after the melodies of the peepers, we can hear the voices of the chorus frogs. Their calls sound similar to the effect of rubbing one's thumb down the teeth of a comb. Just as with the song birds, each species of frogs has a distinctive call, and it is the male who uses sound to set up a territory and then attract females for mating.

A silent amphibian, the salamander provides perhaps the most intriguing springtime ritual to create its family. The Northeastern United States has more varieties of salamanders than the rest of the world combined. They are typically underground, voiceless and nocturnal and live most of their lives in a “Salamander City” beneath our feet, pretty much ignored by humans. But in the spring, we have the opportunity to glimpse hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these ancient creatures in their annual mating migrations to local ponds to breed. Of the many salamander species in Northeast Ohio, the spotted salamander has the most dramatic migration. Under the stimulus of the first warm nighttime rain sometime in March or April, the mature spotted salamander adults make their annual mating trek to woodland and field ponds, marching their way sometimes several miles on their tiny legs by following celestial cues and natural odors. The ponds fill with hundreds of the salamanders where males and females congregate for several days of breeding. The fertilized eggs remain in the water until late summer, metamorphosing into the land-dwelling adults, which live their lives (up to 20 years) in solitude. We may not easily be able to relate to frog and salamander families because they do not raise their young, but this is their own, very successful way of forming natural families.

Amidst all of the bird tunes, baby mammals, bursts of spring-green plant growth, frog songs and salamander migrations, we may almost hear the earth holding its breath, after a big inhale, waiting for the perfect moment for the exuberant exhale of summer. It is as if everything is balanced at that perfect point of synchronicity for the right temperature, food source and protective covering to, together as a community of living things, nourish the emerging natural families with which we share our precious earth.

Carol J. Spears is the site manager at James A. Garfield National Historic Site and First Ladies National Historic Site. She also is a holistic practitioner of Reiki energy healing and therapeutic harp music. Carol can be contacted at (440) 639-9958.