The days are getting longer. I've been awakening at 5:30 every morning, with the first hint of light. Birds already dine below our bedroom window; but I can't blame the hour on the Cardinal's song - not quite yet. When winter's silence is pierced by birdsongs, spring will truly be on its way. The following excerpt applies to NY, as well.
Winter Birds Begin Sing Their Rites of Spring
John Roach-National Geographic News
"Many are still waiting, but some morning soon they, too, will waken to the lilt of a backyard bird pleading for a mate.
'These are all winter birds. It's still winter, but the light, the changing light, has a hormonal trigger, and that starts the birdsong,' said John Hanson Mitchell, editor... Massachusetts Audubon Society... author of A FIELD GUIDE TO YOUR OWN BACKYARD.
Mitchell said the singing of the winter-resident birds is among the first signs that spring is around the corner. Birders begin to report the sounds in the middle weeks of February.
John Dunning, an ecologist at Purdue University, said birds have photoreceptors in the bases of their brains that record the length of the dark period each day. As the darkness shortens, and as days lengthen, birds get spring fever. The photoperiod is very standard from year to year,' he said. 'Days lengthen at a regular pace.' Therefore, using the photoperiod to gauge the season is more reliable than, say, following cues such as an emergence of insects or a freshly sprouting plant, which could easily be fooled by a midwinter warm spell, Dunning added."
