We can finally allow ourselves to dream of Spring. With the last day of March, finally night-time temperatures, while still edging below the freezing point no longer have that icy bite. Although we have more than ample snow left to melt and ice as well, before we can really celebrate the entrance of the new season, we can smell spring in the air; it is palpable.

It is the promising fragrance of soil released from its frozen sleep. Of perennial plants re-awakening, and bulbs realizing it is time they evinced their above-ground presence to flaunt their exuberant, colourful blooms in mid- to late-spring.

And we hear it as well, in the lilting trills of the returned cardinals, and the paeans of the lone robin returned. We've seen redpolls, heard red-winged blackbirds, and the maniacal cry of the Pileated woodpecker. And high above, during the night, lines and vees of geese continue their long journey back North, plaintively calling to one another.

A seasonal reversal is underway as migratory birds begin transiting from winter-habitation south to summertime-habitude north. The waves of returning birds has commenced. It should not be long before warblers too make their ingress to this new season. Time we turned our thoughts to liberation from the cold and denial of growing flora.

Soon the trees will begin to bud, and day by day, startling in its increasing speed, they will once again be fully leafed.