Phenology and Nature

​We had a solid winter this year– steady snow cover and plenty of days below freezing. The landscape is still mostly brown, but life is beginning to stir. It’s maple harvest season, sugarbush time in Rouge Park.
For generations, Native peoples have read ecological signs to mark the coming of sugarbush: the return of ravens, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, American robins, and red-winged blackbirds. Much like us, sapsuckers drill into trees to access sweet sap. In fact, I found a feather from the Yellow Bellied Sap Sucker when I first found this sugarbush location back in 2019 (see a photo from that day below). We’ll be birding in the Rouge this spring, so stay tuned.

For birds, migration is triggered by shifting daylight, food availability, weather patterns, and instinct. We’re just at the beginning of the season now; peak migration won’t arrive until later spring and early summer. People too start to stir as the weather shifts. Michigan is famous for its “false springs,” and this year temperatures approached 50 degrees by the third week of February. While many welcome the warmth, sugar makers watch carefully. Extended warm spells can cause the sugars in maple sap to change and ferment, bringing the harvest to an early close. This narrow window– cold nights, mild days– is golden.
​For me, sugarbush is one of the great joys of late winter and early spring. I’m proud to see it becoming a regular tradition in our Rouge Park community. In recent weeks, I’ve had no fewer than five cars stop along Outer Drive to ask if we were starting up again.

Historically, many Indigenous communities across the Great Lakes region moved seasonally. In winter, smaller hunting camps would gather back together in early spring to boil maple sap. Through communal labor, they produced maple sugar to sustain them through the final stretch of winter. Bringing people together outdoors– for shared work and a little sweetness– is at the heart of our sugarbush project as well.
We hope you’ll join us for sugarbush workdays this March. More details can be found in the stewardship article.