For most of my life, robins symbolized the arrival of spring. It seemed a point of pride to be the first to see a robin in March or April. No matter whom I reported my first sighting to, the other person had seen a robin the day before, or perhaps even the previous week. Was that suspicious? Or was I just unobservant?

However, in 2018 or so, I walked past a flock of robins on the way to the Lake Harriet Kite Festival. The issue? It was mid-January, and the temperature was around -10F. So I learned that when there’s enough food available, robins can remain in one place year ’round, even in areas that get as cold as Minnesota. That makes robins an unreliable sign of spring.

We’ve had a bit of a heat wave this week, with temperatures in the 40s and 50s melting much of our snow. Even though it’s the middle of February, I’ve seen plenty of robins flitting between the buckthorn bushes lining my road home. They must have already been pretty close at hand.

As much as I dislike them for the mess they make, Canada geese are my new heralds of spring. They announce its arrival with discordant, strident honks as they cruise overhead in V formations. The geese need open water when they’re migrating, so a heat wave isn’t going to bring them north. It takes warmer temperatures over a sustained period to get the ice off the lakes.

I have a feeling it’ll be a while before the spring thaw finally arrives.

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year, and the Year of the Fire Horse begins. I’m a horse, so even though I’m not a fire horse, I’ve decided that this is my year. I liked this comparison from Think Tangent, which described the past year, the Year of the Snake, as a year of “truth, grief, endings, detox, end of cycles, shedding, and lifting of veils.” The coming year is described as a year of “movement, new beginnings, alignment, freedom, return to truth, beauty, passion, flow, and power.” Make of that what you will.