Signs of Spring

April 12, 2026

Signs of spring 🌱

Every easter Neil hides 10 empty plastic eggs in the forest, and I hunt for them. One easter I spotted a red “egg” in the duff. Except it wasn’t an egg at all, but a mushroom – Sarcoscypha coccinea, “scarlet elf cups”. It’s one of the first fungi to fruit here as the weather warms and the days lengthen. A vivacious red popping out of the “dead leaves and the dirty ground”. Now I hunt for these mushrooms each easter weekend as well – one of my favourite signs we’ve rounded the corner into spring.

Each year the list of these little signs gets longer. These ruby red frisbee fungi. The hot pink nutmeat of germinating acorns. The first tipsy turkey vultures. The first red-winged blackbird call. Crows and crows and crows. Bugs in the sap buckets. First ants, first flies, first velveteen wings of mourning cloak butterflies. The dragon’s tongues of trout lily leaves sticking out of the dirt. Not the robin, who stays with us through the winter, but the first juicy worm it plucks from the softening ground. After the cold and ice of winter, how delicious that must be.

Happy springtime Sunday 🌱