Chicago Nature Now! Alert
February 28, 2021
SEARCHING FOR SPRING
2021 Edition
“Chicago’s Best Nature Outings, Outdoor Adventures,
Wildflower Walks, Nature Hikes, & Weekend Getaways!”
Don’t miss one beautiful moment.
Click here to subscribe to received FREE nature alerts!
BREAKING NEWS: SPRING HAS SPRUNG IN CHICAGO!
In Chicago, spring officially arrives when sprouts of skunk cabbage push up from the muck or snow. And yesterday, February 27, I found sprouts at both Pilcher Park Nature Center in Joliet and Black Partridge Woods in Lemont. Please join our Friends of ChicagoNatureNOW! Facebook Group to post pictures of your skunk cabbage finds.
Here’s one of my photographs of skunk cabbage from last year’s exploits at Pilcher Park Nature Center:
As is my tradition, I celebrate the emergence of skunk cabbage and the rebirth of a new growing season by posting my poem and educational excerpt the “Searching for Spring” chapter of my book, “My Journey into the Wilds of Chicago: A Celebration of Chicagoland’s Startling Natural Wonders.” I hope that you, too, can get outside and search out the camouflaged skunk cabbage hiding amidst the bronze leaves. (Please watch your step. They’re very hard to see.)
And now, “Searching for Spring.”
Searching for Spring
For me, the beginning of spring does not arrive in a fanfare of color. Rather, it begins subtly. In early March, burgundy spathes of skunk cabbage, dappled with yellow stripes and spots, quietly emerge from beneath a cloak of brown decaying leaves or, by way of a rare heat-generating process called thermogenesis, melt their way to the surface through layers of late winter ice and snow. And when March arrives, snow or not, I meander my way around Black Partridge Woods in a hopeful search for spring:
Winter is waning;
I’ve made it to March.
With eyes to the ground, I search for Spring.
The temperature rises.
The snow slowly melts.
With eyes to the ground, I search for Spring.
Are you under the white
in a warmth all your own?
With eyes to the ground, I search for Spring.
Are you hiding in leaves
or still waiting to rise?
With eyes to the ground, I search for Spring.
Leafing through litter
on the brown woodland floor,
With eyes to the ground, I search for Spring.
Finally up from the mud
sprouts a burgundy curl.
With eyes to the ground, it is Spring I have found.
* Photo is representational and was not recorded this year. Bloom times vary from year to year.
If you find this website of Chicago nature information useful, please consider donating or purchasing my nationally-acclaimed book that celebrates all of the preserves featured on this website.
—Mike