I can’t think of anything more exciting these days than watching the grass grow. It’s even more exciting than watching paint dry. Yes, I’ve done that, too! In fact, solvents evaporating and the surface of paint skimming over is an organic process akin to ponds freezing and the growth of grassy fields, except that the latter process stretches out for months.
The growth of grass is key to the world of wildlife. It starts, just like paint, with a wet surface. This year, after three extremely dry late falls, the ground and seeds were deeply hungry for the first rain—indeed, for the first rain after the first rain. The second rain is usually the one that germinates new seeds. It is the real start of spring—the first mass germination of new grass and forb crops, even though it comes in late fall. Then the critical weeks arrive; will the new grasses take, or will they wither for lack of consistent watering?
This year, at last, the rain held. For weeks the new crops were barely visible on the hills and across the fields—just a faint hint of mint, as germinating seeds concentrated on sending roots down into the damp soil, reaching for the increasing moisture as the length of the days contradictorily shortened.
Before I knew it, we passed the winter solstice and days slowly began to increase. Despite the dark clouds and colder temperatures, the grasses responded. Once their roots set and were consistently watered, their growth surged. Winter officially began, but for the ground crops, and all the animals that depend on them, spring starts again in early January. It comes in between cold spells, each time a warm rain sweeps through or the sun breaks between storms.
As January progresses, and rains keep coming, the old structural grasses break down, new grasses begin to flourish and the hills turn green. At ground level, where the herbivores work, voles, the true base of the pyramid, begin a new cycle of expansion, fueled by the new food supply. Suddenly gophers begin to work, too, the softer ground and surge of plant growth reminding them it is time to start building nests and having new litters. All this renewed rodent activity is great news for just about every predator in the neighborhood, avian and mammalian. Soon they will have families of their own to feed.
A walk across a typical field or hillside in West Marin in the early part of the reawakening is a revelation. Besides grasses, the variety of plants is staggering. Of note in January and February are the iris-related blue-eyed grasses, which are early to sprout and, with their bulb root, capable of lasting through our dry seasons. These predominate on poor-draining soils, accompanied everywhere by dandelion, plantain and sorrel. The corm grasses survive cattle grazing, and supply dry-season food to gophers and voles. Late-season vole and gopher nests are filled with the husks of the small bulbs.
Deer, the true botanists in the herbivore world, are quick to find the most succulent and nutritious crop at any given moment. Much can be learned from observing their choices as they nibble-test their way across the landscape. Constant eaters, deer are finding fresh growth before the plants have been able to manifest their chemical protections in the form of bad-tasting or toxic substances. They eat up to 800 different species of plants during the year; of these, at any one moment they are only feeding on one or two dozen of the currently most nutritious species, but in spring the variety is probably the greatest.
Each week is a new discovery, a new phase in the unfolding of the season of growth. The power of spring shines in the neon flush of verdant fields and fresh tree leaves. The earth warms and days lengthen until, suddenly, it is April and May. We are in the height of spring, a frenzy of growth and flower, bird song and birth. Migrations are underway, creeks are running. Young mammals are learning how to make it through the next winter in this most basic of life rhythms dictated entirely by the angle of spin and the length of revolution of our Earth around the Sun.
The grass continues to grow until, a little later, much like the paint surface finally drying to the touch, the fields mature into grown plants with seed heads forming up, and the green of spring begins to fade into the golden of summer. Animals fade into the background, too, no longer so concerned about seeing and being seen as they court and give birth. Raising the kids and holding the home become their main concern, just as we humans move from the spring into the summer and fall of our own lives.
Richard Vacha lives in Point Reyes Station, where he makes a living as a craftsman and has studied tracking for 30 years. His Marin Tracking Club meets for a free four-hour wander at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 31 at Toby’s Feed Barn. A tracking intensive meets at the same time and place on Saturday, Jan. 30; the fee is $20 and reservations are required to Richard at the Point Reyes Tracking School at (415) 663.1704 or [email protected].