I heard them last night on my first after-dinner walk of the spring. I ripped off my headphones and ran a few feet, straining to make sure I wasn’t mistaken, that the sound I heard was really spring peepers. March 17 seems early for the little guys, especially after the winter we’ve had, but I guess the mild weather has coaxed them from hibernation.

The sound was unmistakable; it is the first song of spring, of warm days and cold nights, of still water and marshy lowlands. It seems ages since I heard the last crickets of fall chirping ever more slowly in the chill autumn air. We’ve had five months of quiet winter evenings since then. Now, with the peepers, nights are full of sound again.