While college basketball fans are focused on their brackets, a more natural madness is unfolding across our wetlands. Chorus frogs and spring peepers have entered the peak of their breeding season and their loud calls ring across the marsh. Joining the frenzy are the season's first insects, rising from the ponds and lakes, hoping to mate before encountering hungry tree swallows, eastern phoebes, eastern bluebirds or reawakening bats.
The hysterical calls of flickers and red-bellied woodpeckers also echo across the wetlands and the impatient, deafening calls of red-winged blackbirds signal the onset of their nesting season. Rafts of ducks and coot add their voices to the chorus while stately great blue herons wade through the shallows, feasting on the tree frogs and other hapless victims. While the color explosion of late spring birds and plants has yet to materialize, a greening landscape spawns the joy of rebirth across the March wetlands.
This year, following a mild winter and fueled by a warm early spring, the marsh madness is especially intense. Though a cold wave could dampen that enthusiasm, the tide of spring has been unleashed and any half-hearted invasions by winter will be quickly rebuffed by the higher sun and longer days. As snakes emerge, insects swarms explode and summer birds arrive, the madness will intensify and nature's season of renewal will reign until an autumn chill invades the marsh.
