In the Northern Hemisphere, meteorological spring begins March first and continues through May. June, July and August comprise summer; September, October and November comprise autumn, and winter just goes on and on and on, from December right through February.

Daylight saving time begins Sunday, March 10.

Astronomical spring begins with the Vernal Equinox, which will be at 11:06 p.m. on March 19.

Why so early? Don’t the solstices and equinoxes generally fall on the 21st of the month? Well, yes, but because of certain permutations of leap year, which I would gladly explain given time, everything is all mixed up this year.

By the way, take a tip from me and don’t bother trying to stand eggs on end the moment of the Vernal Equinox. My mother and I used to believe the old tale that, at the Equinox, eggs stood on end will remain in place. This balancing act, we maintained in our scholarly fashion, is attributable to the very same shift in cosmic celestial forces that equalize day and night.

We wanted so much to believe this that we would cheat by surreptitiously propping up the eggs with little piles of Morton’s table salt (iodized, because we were in Michigan, which is in the goiter belt).

Well, at least I did, but even when I cheated, still the eggs wobbled, fell over and rolled off the counter to smash on the floor, just as they might at any ordinary time of year. Did we get the timing wrong? We wondered.

The eggs-at-the-Equinox superstition was popular long before the advent of QAnon; kind of a precursor, I guess.

This time of year, as the skies clear and the sun feels warm and the gloom of winter is passing, but then the next minute it’s snowing and sleeting, people become irritable. Peevish, as Grandma Allen used to say.

One of the earliest signs of spring is the return of flocks of red-winged blackbird males in early March as they migrate north with no regard whatever for leap year or astronomical, astrological or meteorological time. Contrary to popular belief, birds cannot forecast the weather, and are no better than groundhogs at predicting whether spring will be early or late.

The males fly into town before the females arrive. They have the red and yellow shoulder patches we associate with the species, patches of feathers they can fluff out when they want to show off or hide when they are feeling less bold. The males are also the ones who make all of the noise, big flocks of them singing the warbling, tumbling, burbly notes that announce that spring is coming, or at least that the coming of spring is a possibility.

I am always anxious to see the blackbirds arrive, but I’m not that crazy about them later on. In summer, when they are nesting, males are the ones who will dive bomb you, your cat, or even a horse that comes too near their territory, while the females scuttle around inconspicuously in the underbrush looking for seeds and insects.

The female, less striking in appearance, is referred to as “the drab little female.” After migration, she’ll be keeping to the ground more, not flaunting around on telephone wires and in the treetops like her mate.

Ah yes, her mate. Do blackbirds, like swans, and even some same-sex swans — but that’s another subject — mate for life? And the answer is NO. They most certainly do not.

A male blackbird may have as many as 15 breeding partners in his territory, which he energetically defends, battling it out with other males as well as with his enemies the marsh wrens, both species attacking each other’s nests and viciously breaking each other’s eggs.

The females, while drab, get around, too. Ornithologists have found that up to 50% of the eggs in a nest may have been fertilized by a male from some other territory entirely. “You are NOT the father!” burbles an avian Maury.

Oh, all right, back to the swans. Both females and males may form life-long same-sex bonds, building and guarding nests and hanging out together as couples. This has nothing to do with spring or red-winged blackbirds, but I think it’s interesting.

Have a good week.

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(Martha Allen, of Keene Valley, has been writing for the Lake Placid News for more than 20 years.)