Dancing into Spring
shall we join in?
The woods began to dance yesterday. Not like they do sometimes, when wild winds whip them into a whirling frenzy, but in a quieter, littler, maybe more joyous way. A dance of coming awake.
Toward the end of winter every year, there comes a day when a bloom of tiny organisms called springtails or Collembola—colloquially, snowfleas—appears. They show up in other seasons as well, but in late winter they are particularly noticeable, their tiny jumping black bodies massed in sharp contrast with the still-white snow.
Springtails are among the most abundant of all macroscopic creatures “with estimates of more than 100,000 individuals per square meter of ground, essentially everywhere on Earth where soil and related habitats (moss cushions, fallen wood, grass tufts, ant and termite nests) occur.”
Having been hidden all winter, a bloom of snowfleas is among the first marks of warmth returning to the woods. They bring the news: Spring is around the corner.
We still have a lot of snow, and the ground is frozen hard and deep. No matter. Amidst the madness, a million little guys are leaping and dancing their way into spring. It’ll take a while, but dancing helps. Shall we join in?
It is a wonderful thing that the Earth is so much more than only human beings.