Each month has its own natural identity and April is no exception. As much as anything, this time of year means the return of song. On an April morning, the chorus of robins, cardinals, mourning doves and crows can be so loud that you have to get up and close the bedroom window. All day long, forests resonate with the drumming of ruffed grouse and the courtship hammering of yellow-bellied sapsuckers. When evening comes, the nasal “beep” of the woodcock is constantly repeated from damp fields and thickets until the bird suddenly launches itself into the air and begins its spectacular sky dance.
But song is not limited to only birds, for this is also a time of amphibian love as marshes, swamps and woodland ponds reverberate with the calls of countless frogs caught up in a frenzy to reproduce. Salamanders, too, join the fray as they venture over ice, rock and road to make their way back to ancestral breeding ponds. On our lakes, we hear yet another April music in the tinkling of black candle ice, the clamour of ice piling up in ridges, and the roar of waves rolling under the disintegrating surface.
Our noses recognize the season by the smell of the sodden, thawing earth and decaying leaves. And, for those of us old enough to remember, April will always be synonymous with the smell of grass fires.
New plant life, too, vies for our attention this month. The yellow flowers of coltsfoot push forth among roadside stones. Almost overnight, tree tops appear less open as dormant buds swell and begin to open. The flowers of willows, poplars, elms and alders stand out against the grey brown landscape and provide a foretaste of what is to come, because April is a time of great expectation. In only a few weeks, the explosive growth of flowers and leaves will totally transform the landscape.

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