Friday, March 20, 2009

Vernal Equinox

The vernal equinox occurred this morning, when the center of the sun was directly over the equator.

In our tiny corner of New Hampshire, today we had 12 hours and 10 minutes of daylight, and 11 hours 50 minutes of twilight and night.

The equilux, when day and night are equal length, typically occurs several days before the equinox in the northern hemisphere.

Today is the first official day of spring, but it takes some work to notice actual signs of spring during our walk in the woods.


Bailey can find running water instead of just ice. (He loves to wallow!)

The ice is melting slowly.


Woodpeckers are searching for or building nest cavities.



Hungry woodpeckers ripped this tree apart, leaving a pile of splintered wood as insects started moving around in the tree.


Snow melts around the trees first.




Conifers and moss are the greenest parts of the woods right now.


An arrow left over from bow-hunting season is revealed when the snow melts.

OK, those of you who live where you have daffodils and green grass and budding leaves can feel just a wee bit smug. But spring is here now too!!


8 comments:

charlotte said...

Lovely pictures! It is interresting to see how spring arrives in the woods of New Hampshire. Anyway, I think you have a lot of spring! Here it snowed 30 cm only today...

Terri said...

I really enjoyed the pictures. Right now, here in MD, the sun doesn't rise until 7am. When we head to New England next month it takes getting used to the sun rising at 5:30am. We also enjoy spring here and then again up there. It seems spring arrives a month later.

Theresa said...

Great pictures Sue. I'm not feeling smug at all. Looks like we are at about the same point in our spring thaw as you. We do have small leaves just starting on our wild elderberry's and the lilac, artic willow and native dogwoods are all showing signs of life! No daffodils have broken ground yet though. Might be a good year for morel mushrooms. I'm hoping so.

Dorothy said...

o.k. we have daffodils, first flowers appeared this week, but your photos are beautiful and that feel of spring in the air is magical wherever.

Deanna said...

No smugness here, either. I can imagine that the seasonal contrast makes the vernal equinox a very lovely and visceral event.

Life Looms Large said...

Oh, maybe "smug" was too harsh a term!! I know that I long for spring, and that we have a muddy, long spring here in NH. Still some time to focus on indoor pursuits!!

It's interesting to hear and see how different spring is in different parts of the world!!

We do get a lot of sunlight in the summer. Being a morning person, I love that the sun wakes me up earlier and earlier as we head toward the summer solstice!! My husband, a night owl, doesn't love that so much!!

Happy spring!
Sue

bspinner said...

Great pictures. Much better than my idea of spring. I'd post pictures of melting snow but we didn't get again this year. Hope we get some rain to make up for the lack of snow if not we're in store for a dry summer.

Jennifer said...

You know three is something to be said for having all four seasons. You get to experience and appreciate all of them. We may have daffodils and blooms, but winter only lasts for a couple of days! How can one get good apples with that????