Third Week 

Earliest ruffed grouse are laying eggs. Average clutch is about a dozen eggs but the number varies.

Yellow-bellied sapsuckers are beginning to return from points south. They lap up sap from holes in trees that they have drilled in the past few days and will eat any insects the sap has attracted. 

This year's litter of woodchucks is being born. The parents may already have been out nibbling grass.   

Fourth Week 

Moose hair is in raggedy patches, for they are molting their thick winter coats.

Balsam shoot-boring sawflies, a little larger than blackflies, may be abundant in Christmas tree plantations at midday in the warmth of the sun.

Fox sparrows are passing through.

These listing are based on observations and reports in our home territory at about 1,000 feet in elevation in central Vermont and are approximate. Events may occur earlier or later, depending on your latitude, elevation - and the weather.

There is nothing like the fresh smell of a spring morning, unless, during the night, a skunk skulked about your neighborhood. The striped skunk is armed with just a teaspoon of odoriferous oil in its two anal glands, but a little bit goes a long way...

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Spring Comes to the Turkey Woods, Dave Mance III

Fireworks, Bryan Pfeiffer 

Spring is mating season for many animals, particularly birds. While many of their courtship rituals may seem curious or amusing to us, they serve a clear evolutionary purpose. Have each student choose a bird to study and report on its courtship rituals, including song, plumage displays (like the kinglet's red crown or the turkey's fanned tail and dropped wing tips), and so on. How does the male court the female? Where do they nest? Who builds the nest? Who incubates eggs and raises young? Do they mate for life or just for one season? What evolutionary purpose do the species' mating rituals serve? Have students create a captivating display for their bird species, with photos and/or illustrations, vivid text, and any other visual or audio supports.

Book: The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior, edited by Chris Elphick, John B. Dunning, Jr. and David Allen Sibley. Alfred A. Knopf: 2001. You'll find a good general account of bird reproductive behavior in the beginning of the book, plus specifics on various species throughout.

Website: Your students will love this clip from the excellent DVD series Planet Earth, available on YouTube, in which a male Bird of Paradise uses a stunning plumage display to attract a female. A fun way to introduce the idea of courtship displays.

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(This activity is on page 3)  

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Spring Comes to the Turkey Woods 

Fireworks   

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Reader Ellen Snyder took this picture last weekend at College Woods in Durham, New Hampshire. What is this dark splotch?

Every other week we run a photo of something unusual found in the woods. Guess what it is and you'll be eligible to win a copy of The Outside Story, a paperback collection of our Outside Story newspaper columns. A prize winner will be drawn at random from all the correct entries. The correct answer, and the winner's name, will appear in next week's column. 

Reader Garry Plunkett took this photo on his small suburban woodlot in Tiverton, Rhode Island. What is it?

1970's vintage Lynyrd Skynyrd offering (Gimme Back My Bullets, no doubt) that had been tossed from the open window of a speeding car and subsequently lodged in a young apple tree.) 

The alder tongue gall results from a fungus (T. amentorum) that infects the female fruit-scales of alder trees. The scales are deformed and grow to several times their normal size. Color-wise, the outgrowths progress from green to bright orange to red before finally turning brown, like the ones seen in this photo.