Some tree leaves bud out later in the spring than others. White ash (Fraxinus americana) is the last to open it’s leaves. It grows wild, with lots of cousins, but it is also planted and harvested, to keep up with the demand for baseball bats, tool handles and lobster traps (traditionally), and also flooring and furniture (recently).

Some frogs mate later in the spring than others. The green frog (Lithobates clamitans melanota), starts now, breeds until August. “Unck!…” is the male’s cry. It is a summer sound heard everywhere at dusk, a loose banjo string every ten or fifteen seconds.

Beavers (Castor canadensis) birth this week and next. Until the kits become waterproof on their own at about two months of age, mom preens them with waterproofing secretions from her own body. They swim within weeks of birth. Adults switch diets this week, too, from tree bark to succulent waterside vegetation. They won’t eat another bite of tree bark until next winter.

White-spotted sawyers (Monochamus scutellatus), which are out through the summer, make their appearance now. They have a superficial resemblance to Asian long-horned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis), and their chewing in softwood trees is loud enough to be heard some yards away. They do far less damage than the Asian long-horned beetle, which arrived from Asia in 1996, apparently in wooden packing crates.

White tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are also giving birth this week. Twins is the rule for does that went into last winter in good health; the rest have a single fawn. Fawns are born camouflaged, and their spots blend in with fern fiddleheads, growing in the forest now just a little taller than fawns are. Most ferns produce fiddleheads in the spring; ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) and bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) provide food for epicures, hippies and hillbillies.

Honeybees (Apis mellifera) are most likely to swarm on a sunny day in late May, especially after a few days of rainy weather. A swarm is simply a colony dividing: up to 60% of the bees in a hive will follow the queen as she hunts for a new apartment, fifteen liters or larger. A queen is normally too heavy to fly, of course, so she is put on a strict diet in preparation. What about the rest of the colony? Before her diet, the queen laid special eggs in special egg cups, eggs that will produce virgin queens. One of these will take over as the new queen. Another might take flight with yet another, smaller swarm.

Lilac (Syringa vulgaris), an important springtime resource for bees, flowers now in abundance. Imported from Ottoman Turkey in the 1500s by royal gardeners in Rome, it soon made it’s way to England and the Americas, where it is still prized for it’s utility, beauty and fragrance. It is closely related to the olive tree (Olea europaea).

While the first batch of phoebes (Sayornis phoebe) has hatched and left home already, the scarlet tanager (Piranga olivacea) is nest building. While doing so, the female scarlet tanager sings a softer, more feminine version of the male’s harsh chick-burr call. The bright-red male is rarely seen, staying high in the trees, but their call is familiar even in parks and suburban woods. The male molts in the fall, ditching his scarlet duds and migrating in drag, dressed in the female’s yellow-green outfit.

Arcturus, an important star, shines brightly in the southeast this week. It is easy to find; first, find the Big Dipper (the last two stars on the “cup” part point to the North Star, Polaris, which is always due north). Then notice that the handle of the Big Dipper makes an arc. Follow that “arc to Arcturus” a handle-length or more, and you have found the brightest star visible from the northern hemisphere. It is also the oldest object in the sky that is visible to the naked eye, at 7 billion years old. With binoculars you can see the star HD 140283, in Libra, at 13 billion years the oldest object yet discovered.