The author observed his first robin of the season on Sat. Mar. 8.  The occurrence always heralds the return of spring and the adventures the season brings in the outdoors. Simonson Photo

By Nick Simonson

In spring, no matter how long or short the wait has been through winter, there is no more welcome sound than the song of a returning robin.  The simple set of tweets that come with the dawn when one is first heard not only suggest that the worst of winter is behind us but that the best of spring will soon be upon us; even if winter still has some tricks to play on us in the coming days and weeks.

So it was for me on the first comfortable outdoor run this Saturday, as I scuffled along the gritty edges of the suburban streets at the edge of town, following a familiar path now free of snow and even the hazards of the melt-and-refreeze of the shrinking plow berms and slicks of overnight ice that had previously lined the curb and gutter of the developments leading out to the country.  There in a maturing maple tree, near the peak of its bare triangle of branches sat my spring’s first robin, calling out to the wakening world as the light purple gray of dawn gave way to the first orange rays of the rising sun.  The allegory of the approaching season was tough to miss.

Because just as the chatter of wild turkeys in the gully at the small park where I make the halfway turn, and the crow of a rooster pheasant farther down toward the river bottom where the rill led seemed to build upon the song, I know that other harbingers of the season will as well, and it won’t just be birds.  It’ll be the run of northern pike I pursue with the fly rod in those spring feeder creeks coming up from the nearby flow.  It’ll be the blackened skies with vees of Canada and snow geese on their return trip north. It’ll be the first tingle of a woodtick crawling up my pantleg as I walk the shoreline grasses on a nearby lake casting for rainbow trout. And it’ll be the commotion of a largemouth bass breaking surface as the season then shifts toward summer.

The joy of that first robin and the uplift in my spirit is tough to tamp down, even with forecasts suggesting the return of winter’s wrath at the end of the week.  This is because I know from watching, experiencing, and adventuring in the outdoors of all the wonderful things that come after the cheery orange-bellied bird and no suggestion of a late winter storm can dampen those anticipatory thoughts and recollections of previous post-robin excitement that comes in the wild world around me not far down the dirt road leading away from the turning point on my weekend run.

Those events too will become quicker as the season hits full swing and I shake off the confines of the treadmill evident in this weekend’s jog; and like the pace of those follow-up jaunts, all these signs of spring will be upon us faster and faster as well.  They mean there is still much to do in a shorter timespan to get ready for it all. With trips planned, spring adventures boxed in on the calendar, and those spur-of-the-moment mornings or evenings yet to come on a whim of the weather and openings in my schedule, I’ll us the brief time available to prioritize projects from respooling rods to whipping up the last of my tackle to get prepared for what’s ahead and what will follow the first spring songs of the robin…in our outdoors.