Signs of Spring

Maple Flowers

Willow

 April 17, 2026

Nantucket is now lit up with daffodils. They are the human measure of hope for the spring.  It is the fiftieth anniversary of the Nantucket Daffodil Festival next week...so the brilliance was planted during my time here.   Sometimes I prefer the less bold signs of spring: the red maple blossoms and earliest wood anemone spring ephemerals in Squam Swamp; the bright pussy willow blooms near Sesachacha Pond.

The return of water is another sign of spring...and there is lots of water and killdeer at Windswept Bog.  The spring peepers are in chorus.   I was delighted by the sight of a Wilson's Snipe flying toward Stump Pond. No green-winged teal or sandpipers.  Alder Run, which was completely dry these past two summers, is now a small watercourse. On April 10, Nantucket was moved down to a Level 1 Drought from Level 2.   

Killdeer

There are still some gannets and long tailed ducks on the ocean out front. The scoters are thinning out. It's the season shuffling time of year when I start wondering...is this the last of season bufflehead I will see, or dark-eyed junco or white throated sparrow? Meanwhile, we have welcomed the ospreys and egrets are back and the Eastern Towhees are preeting. I saw my FOY catbird.

April 18 was a mizzle day in the 40s with fog and wind.  I biked the Polpis Loop anyway, while a northern harrier hunted overhead and my FOY pine warbler sang along the way.

Sesachacha was connected to the Atlantic Ocean and drained on April 4 . That restores Cain's Pond as a separate entity and opens up the shores to shorebirds. Greater Yellowlegs and Killdeer were making use of it. On April 19 I found the trail from Sesachacha to Quidnet that I used to run on when the kids were young and we took them to Quidnet to the beach.  Can't wait to visit it again on my bike when more birds are around.  

Sankaty Light 

FOY Greater Yellowlegs

Foggy Sesachacha

Spring is Coming

Early spring seeds a pull of possibility.  The Greenbrier and Moss are the only green amidst gray trees and straw grasses,  but buds are forming.  The energy is ready to burst.    

A daffodil or two have sprung  open, but only in the warmest most protected spots. More energy ready to burst.   Josh and I hiked Norwood Farm on Sunday. I spotted one patch of green-leaved trailing arbutus (Mayflower) leaves- the harbinger of blooms to come.   There is very little bird song- the soundscape was the soughing of the wind and cracks of branches creaking.

The Moor Ponds have refilled compared to the fall.  But the drought level for Nantucket was reduced to level 2 "significant drought" from  level 3 "critical drought" just earlier this month. There has been 1.2 inches of precipitation in both February and March.

The sunrises and sunsets are now close to  their equinox, when the sun rises directly in front of our house. The lesser black-backed gulls tiptoe around at the bottom of the bluff at sunrise.

We hiked Squam Swamp on Monday and it looked beat up. Beat up meaning arms of trees and whole trees down and twigs scattered and not a hint of green on the forest floor. Many more vernal pools than last year, but not a hint of spring ephemeral flowers yet.  More energy to come. No birdsong ...again the wind is the soundscape.

Windswept Bog is flooded, the first time since its restoration. The soundscape  is wind,  Killdeers kill-dee-ing  and spring peepers peeping.

Killdeer

Gannets are migrating north and pass by at 20 every half minute at mid day, which was high tide.  They have been streaming all Monday afternoon,  pushed by the strong (25 mph with gusts to 40) southwest winds. They were streaming again at Clark's Cove on Tuesday morning, again with a southwest wind.    

The first returning Osprey were sighted a week ago. On Monday and Tuesday I saw Osprey on 7 poles around the island ( 1 Sesachacha, 5 Long Pond, 1 Jackson Point.). Their return is a sure sign of spring.

We were welcomed to Hyannis on Sunday by a fish crow's crank.  On the slow boat over to Nantucket, there seemed to be fewer ducks on Nantucket Sound than midwinter.  I think of hundreds of and hundreds of scoters as commonplace, but not on our ferry.  When we head back to the mainland we will take the FastFerry, which starts up again on April 1, another spring awakening.

The winter felt bitter this year, with much snow and many days of freezing temperatures. It was, compared to the prior three years, but not the winter of 2021-22. Looking at the past 5 years of winter temperature, the average daily high was 41 degrees (compared to 40, 42, 43 and 39 in the previous years) and the average daily low was 30 degrees (compared to 29,31,32 and 28). Total freezing days were 64, more than the prior three years ( 58,52,41) but less than 68 days in 2021-2022.

Long-tailed Ducks

Norwood Pond

Corner Pond

Almanac  Pond