Rose-breasted grosbeaks, ruby-throated hummingbirds and chimney swifts return. Also look for the first Baltimore orioles. They spend winter in Costa Rica and other parts of Central America, and arrive in numbers the first two weeks of May. These orioles have a strong homing instinct and often return year after year to nest in the same yard and even the same tree. Expect to see tiny Canada geese goslings swimming with their parents and grazing on fresh green grasses. A friend from Le Sueur, Minn., spotted the first newly hatched goslings April 17. Ring-necked pheasants, blue jays, and northern cardinals are among the birds incubating eggs. Red-winged blackbirds build their nests.
It's time to enjoy the superb fragrances and visual beauty of crabapple, apple and lilac flowers, and to hunt for the Minnesota state mushroom, the common morel. Asparagus is up tall enough to harvest, and gardeners continue pulling rhubarb. Cattle graze on lush green pastures. Forest canopies have emerald green new leaves, and forest floors are carpeted with blooming wildflowers such as the cut-leaved toothwort, wild blue phlox and various violets. Wild grapevines and staghorn sumac shrubs are leafing-out.
American toads, leopard frogs, western chorus frogs, and spring peepers add their captivating vocalizations to the spring air. Young gray squirrels leave their nests. Red fox kits are out of their dens, playing in the sunlight.
Jim Gilbert is the author of five books on nature in Minnesota. He was a naturalist for 50 years.
