Second Week 

The new shoots of Japanese knotweed are edible when less than 8 inches tall, perhaps the best use for this invasive, non-native plant.

Yellow warblers are here: look for an all-yellow body, with wing feathers edged in yellow, singing sweet sweet sweet shredded wheat.

Queen bumblebees are laying their first clutch of eggs, often in abandoned mouse nests.

Third Week 

Blackfly larvae that haven't been eaten by other insect larvae or trout are emerging as adults.

Beavers shift their diet to herbaceous plants like cattails, pickerel weed, and water lilies. They will go back to subsisting on bark next winter.

Male hummingbirds arrive, usually about a week before the females.

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.

Among the noisy throngs of blackbirds that are the earliest harbingers of spring in the Northeast, the rusty blackbird often escapes notice. Few birders encounter this enigmatic songbird during the course of spring migration, and because rusties rarely join the conspicuous flocks of red-winged blackbirds and common grackles that descend on our feeding stations from mid-March onwards, few come to know the bird well...

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Birch polypore, Piptoporus betulinus, Virginia Barlow

This article provides a wonderful introduction to the world of fungi. Scientists have identified more than 70,000 species in the Fungus Kingdom, and they are essential parts of the web of life. Take your students on a springtime fungus walk. Consult with your local Audubon chapter or county forester for suggestions of a knowledgeable naturalist or mushroom hunter to accompany you. Collect specimens of non-poisonous fungi, like the birch polypore, and bring them back to the classroom to study. You'll find curriculum materials for fungus investigations on The Ecology Center website, listed below. Have each student select a local fungus species and create poster highlighting its life cycle, uses, and ecological niche.

Website: Curriculum materials for teaching about fungi can be found on The Ecology Center webpage: www.ecologycenter.org/tfs/lesson.php?id=13511.

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(This activity is on page 3)  

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Birch polypore, Piptoporus betulinus      

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OK, gastronomes, what are they? 

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

We had a variety of guesses for this one, including frog spawn, black slime mold, vermicompost, staymat gravel, unused black powder, and our favorite, "Uncle Jed was out shooting his gun again and up come some bubblin' crude."

Of course, what you're really looking at are tens of thousands of springtails, also known as snow fleas. To learn more about these tiny hexapods, click here.