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I spent this past weekend digging my home out of 17.5 inches of wet, heavy snow. Within days, the sun had taken care of the rest. A pot full of “Easter Daisies” began blooming. A few courageous leaves opened on Sand Cherries and Golden Currants. The songs of robin, sparrows, and finches spread through my neighborhood.
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Winter is giving way to spring. With it, I’ve been thinking and writing on the seasonal lore around Whip-poor-wills. I’ll also soon be presenting on this (and many other Whip-poor-will related things!) to Denver Field Ornithologists on April 29 at 7:00 PM Mountain Time.
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This will be my first opportunity to present publically on all the things I'm learning about Whip-poor-will lore, including their remarkable name, the superstitions around their song, and their enduring meaningfulness in American lives. And because the talk will be over Zoom, you're invited! You don’t even need to be a member of Denver Field Ornithologists to attend. But you do need to register. The talk will also be recorded, and I’ll share the link in my spring newsletter.
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But back to that seasonal lore: meet Lucy Templeton (1878-1971), one of the remarkable nature journalists I've encountered while researching for my book on Whip-poor-wills.
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Templeton wrote for the Knoxville Sentinel in Tennessee for much of the twentieth century. Her popular column, “A Country Calendar,” documents the arrivals and departures of birds, the blooming of flowers, and the meaning of nature in her Tennessee community.
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Templeton was a particularly keen observer of Whip-poor-wills. As early as 1954, she noted the decline of Whip-poor-wills in the Tennessee landscape. She also often corrected her neighbors who spoke of a “Whippoorwill Winter,” the belief that cold and snow would follow the return of the birds to Tennessee. “There is the Whippoorwill STORM,” she wrote in 1935, using all caps for emphasis. But that could mean anything: lightning, heavy rain, and, yes, maybe even snow. There was, according to Templeton, no such thing as a Whippoorwill Winter.
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Templeton never convinced her neighbors. Even today, the Tennessee Historical Society lists the “Whippoorwill Winter” as one of Tennessee’s five or six “little winters.”
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Or want to know what else the song of a Whip-poor-wills means? Check out my recent blog post, “What does it mean when you hear a Whippoorwill?”
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Or maybe just antsy for spring? Here are those "Easter Daisies," western flowers in the genus Townsendia.
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lonesomewhippoorwill.com
jared@lonesomewhippoorwill.com
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