Cabin fever makes us gardeners look hard for the first signs of spring. Depending on your level of desperation, this can vary from the first tulips and returning hummingbirds in April to the snowdrops and hardy robins seen during January thaws. If you are in tune with our suburban ecosystem, nearly every day from New Year's to Memorial Day can be a sign of warm weather to come.

April skies can be deep azure blue (if we are lucky) to dull leaden gray. The sky is all the more prominent since bare tree branches will not leaf out until next month. Surprisingly, these branches can offer color the likes of which we won't see again until autumn. Maple trees are one of my early spring favorites, producing displays more subtle than the bright pink of redbuds, but grand nonetheless due the towering stature of the trees. Red Maples produce small but distinctly red flowers along their graceful branches starting in March. Norway and Sugar Maples produce a similar show in chartreuse yellow, which can be blazingly brilliant when lit by the sun when low in the sky. Silver Maples seem to split the difference with yellow flowers frosting the bright red buds.

Most gardeners are happy if they don't have resident groundhogs to emerge in February in search of their shadows, since their tastes run towards garden plants and veggies. Nearly every yard hosts a small cousin of the groundhog that can serve as a substitute: the Eastern Chipmunk. Chipmunks are not true hibernators, but spend the winter in a restless sleep which is often interrupted for meals from their caches deep within their burrows. By March, these stores become depleted, forcing the chipmunks out into the late winter snowdrifts in search of bird feeder gleanings, or alas, for a sprouting flower bulb or two. Their appearance is a sure sign that winter is finally over.

No creature conjures thoughts of spring flowers more than butterflies. One of my favorite memories of a sign of spring happened on a sunny but chilly day dedicated to finishing my early season pruning chores. As I paused to gather the suckers and water sprouts I had removed from an apple tree, I noticed a Mourning Cloak butterfly sunning itself on a nearby tree trunk. The forty degree air must have calmed it enough to allow me to approach, as I took care not to allow my shadow to rob it of a single second of springtime sun. Similar in appearance to the dark form of the Tiger Swallowtail, Mourning Cloaks use their bluish black coloration to make the most of solar heat when they emerge from winter hibernation. Only the yellow band along the rear edge of its wings, crowned with blue dots, reflected enough light to catch my eye. What better way to make a chill wind seem more like a balmy August breeze?