March Sweetness
Spring Bird Migration, a special kind of full moon, and thinking about this month's fitfulness
Happy first full week of March!
Here are three events to watch for, two quotes for the season, and one grounding activity to get you slowing down in the month ahead.1
Three Events to Celebrate this Month
1. Spring Bird Migration has already begun.
New birds are beginning to show up yards, parks, fields, and neighborhoods. Some will take up residence for weeks, or will stay for an entire winter season, depending on their species where you live.
A great resource for following this season’s migration patterns is BirdCast, a consortium of interdisciplinary researchers that collects and shares migration pattern prediction data about when birds migrate, where they migrate, and how far they will be flying. Their webpage includes a live migration map and forecasting maps for the next three days out.
2. Spring Equinox
This year the vernal (spring) equinox occurs on Tuesday, March 19. At that moment, the Sun will exactly above the Equator and no matter where you live, and day and night are approximately the same length.
3. The Worm Moon gets a penumbral eclipse.
The full moon closest to the spring equinox is called the Worm Moon. This year it occurs on the night of March 24-25. The name is thought to refer the return of earth worms as the grounds thaw, though there’s also historical evidence the name has connections to beetle larvae that appear on tree bark as the weather warms.
This month’s full moon coincides with a penumbral eclipse that will be visible in North and South America in the overnight hours (starting around 9 pm on the west coast, with it peaking right around midnight there). A penumbral eclipse happens when the Moon passes through an outer region of the Earth's shadow. It’s a lot more subtle than a total eclipse and may go unnoticed to those who aren’t looking for it.
But don’t take my word for it. This really useful educational video by Lowell Observatory in Arizon, about a 2020 partial penumbral eclipse, explains the phenomenon in more detail:
Two Quotes for March
1.
March is a fitful month, caught between two seasons, with each wrestling for supremacy. Yet eventually Spring wins out. Poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox captures this well in this stanza from her poem, “March.”
“So comes unlovely March, with wind and storm,
To break the spell of winter, and set free
The poisoned brooks and crocus beds oppressed.”
2.
But then again, is their any other month that invokes a sense of anticipation more than this one? Author Maureen F. McHugh captures this sentiment well:
“It was spring, the barren time in March when you cannot be sure if it is really warner, but you are so desperate for change that you tell yourself the mud at the edge of the sidewalk is different than winter mud and you are sure that the smell of we soil has suddenly a bit of the scent of summer rains, of grass and drowned earthworms. And it has, because it is spring and inside the ground something is stirring.”
Slowing Down: Try this for the month of March
It’s happening again! Spring is almost here. The amount of sunlight in each day changes more rapidly around the Equinoxes than during the Solstices. Pick a time of day in the evening or morning to take notice of this change.
About once or twice a week at that time, step outside and observe.
What does the light look like? What is the temperature? Where is the sun located? What does your shadow look like?
Each time you go out to make your observations, write them down in a notebook.
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