On my walk to work this morning, the plaintive call of a mourning dove rang through the predawn darkness; the temperature was 20 degrees F. No leaves grace the trees and no flowers adorn the lawns. Baseball is relegated to the South for another two months and the fragrance of wet soil is just a memory. Winter still grips the Heartland.
But, unlike humans, wild creatures are more responsive to the solar cycle than they are to the daily weather. Despite the polar air and human calendar, this dove has sensed the coming spring and, in doing so, assures her skeptical neighbors that nature's cycle remains intact. For that, we are most grateful; her familiar, mournful tune, an omen of early spring, is welcome music to the ears of winter weary humans.
