Is springtime early or late in your area? Maps track flowers and birds.

Yahoo

22-03-2025

The calendar may say spring is here, but what is nature telling us?
Bright new leaves on trees and spring flowers are arriving in waves across the U.S., and the birds are right behind them with early season migrants on the move over the last few weeks.
Nationally, spring leaf out continues to spread north across the country, the USA National Phenology Network reported this week. In the eastern half of the country, spring is coming in fits and starts, arriving later than a long-term average in some areas and earlier in others, the Network said.
Specifically, the classic signs of spring have been appearing for weeks across the South and are gradually inching northward on a map the Network uses to represent the very beginning of biological activity in the spring.
Spring actually arrived a little later than usual in many locations across much of the southern half of the nation, where spring arrives first, said Theresa Crimmins, an associate professor at the University of Arizona and the network's director. 'Only little chunks of the country have had an early season,' she said, while places like Texas and North Florida have spring signals arriving a little later.
However, Crimmins expects that to change over the next couple of weeks. They're watching the leading edge of the spring conditions moving northward into Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania, and she said it looks like the more northward locations are ahead of schedule.
Spring indicators in southern Nebraska, the southern half of Iowa and creeping into northern Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and southern Pennsylvania, are starting next week and it will be ahead of schedule by a week to two weeks, she said.
Leaves are budding out on red maples and silver maples, she said. In addition, sumac species have flower buds, and the lilacs are starting to wake up.
At the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, spring blooms are a welcome sight after months of recovery from Hurricane Helene. The gardens are "bursting with color," according to the estate's latest bloom report and the daffodils are "especially brilliant." They're seeing one of the earliest blooming azaleas, the Cornell Pink Rhodendron, put on "a dazzling display."
Overall, spring is a great time to get outside, and the center offers activities to get people on the move, Crimmins said. 'Getting outside and looking at plants and animals is good for physical and mental health.'
'At this rather early stage of spring migration – numbers are close to the last 10 years' average,' said Andrew Farnsworth, a migration ecologist at Cornell University's Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The university hosts the BirdCast Migration Dashboard.
In recent nocturnal migration metrics, Farnsworth said they've seen about 37 million birds move through Texas and 13-14 million move through Florida.
So far the biggest nights across the U.S. have been March 13-14, with about 65 million birds aloft mostly in the upper Mississippi River valley and Midwest. March 17-18 and March 18-19 were also big nights, with "each seeing about 30-40 million birds migrating at night, mostly in the central and eastern U.S.,' he said.
Coming soon to a sky near you: 500 million birds
Waterfowl are also on the move, he said. 'So people will be seeing lots of geese and ducks moving generally north, as well as the arrival of great egrets and great blue herons,' he said.
In Chicago, the last few weeks have been that odd time of year, said Matt Igleski, executive director of the Chicago Bird Alliance. Some birds that spend winters haven't left yet, but other new birds are arriving as they migrate through the region.
It seems like this year's migration is arriving 'about on time,' Igleski said. Last week he visited a little forest area and saw his first fox sparrow of the season. On Wednesday, 'I had my first brown-headed cowbird singing outside the office,' he said. 'The red-winged blackbirds also are showing up. When you see those, you know that spring is showing up. We've been seeing them at the backyard feeders.'
During a warm spell last week, the area had big pushes of sandhill cranes migrating through, he said. 'In the next few weeks, we'll see Eastern phoebes and golden-crowned kinglets.'
Photo galleries from USA Network newspapers show the earliest spring arrivals in all their glory.
Sheboygan, Wisconsin
Stockton, California
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Wilmington, North Carolina
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Early or late spring? Maps track flowers and birds.