4 ~ Signals
Here, in the period of late February and early March, even if snow and cold still press quietly on the world, come two unfailing, first signs that winter is starting its turn toward spring. One is the start of housekeeping by our local pair of bald eagles, in the same nest that has been in eagle use since I moved here in 2012. At this time of year, before leaf-out, I can see the nest from the window at my kitchen sink. Along with great horned and barred owls, bald eagles are among the earliest nesters of Driftless birds. It takes a long time to grow an eagle to independence, thus the need for an early start.
A couple of weeks ago my neighbor, Jerry Davis, took this beautiful photo, above, of the eagle pair setting up house. Within the following week it became apparent that egg laying had started. Now, all that can be seen on the nest, but at all hours, is a still, white head just above the rim. With the eggs laid (probably two or three), the female - at least it will be mostly her - has settled into the stillness of incubation (a period of about 35 days).
The other, roughly contemporaneous signal is the commencement of the upward flow of maple sap. Sugaring time. I tap a few trees each year, beginning when the suitable conditions appear: warming days above freezing, and nights below freezing. The sap flows with the warmth of day, and ceases at night. I tapped my first maple of this season on 22 February (three days after Jerry took the eagle photo). Since then, the weather has been quite variable (as you can perhaps gather from the photo below!), and so has the flow of sap. Still, I’ve finished a few pints of syrup so far (running at about 33 pints of sap collected to 1 pint of syrup produced).
These two signals of winter’s approaching end, each profound in its way, are quite different. They flow in opposite directions. After a hard winter of foraging, the female bald eagle gently drops eggs into her nest and, entering her least active time of year, settles into the torpor of incubation. From her nest high near the tree’s crown, her energy is directed down and inward, toward stillness. At the same time, maple trees are rousing themselves, coming alive from the roots up, and pushing life and energy upward and outward, in an act of expansion. It’s as though these opposing late winter energies, this eagle yin and maple yang, create the friction, the creative tension, that sparks the release of spring.
If I were king of the world, New Year would be marked from the spring equinox (about March 20), and celebrated by the consumption of large quantities of maple syrup, and with glasses raised to nesting eagles. Perhaps it is a tradition I will start this year – a celebratory equinox breakfast of pancakes with new maple syrup, and toasts of gratitude, and well-wishing, for the long lives of eagles.