February: first sign of spring!

I've learned not to trust the arrival of the robins as the first sign of spring. I saw robins cheerfully roosting in my neighbor's tree in January and I know that they overwinter in the white cedars on campus (hard to believe that anyone would consider Chicago a balmy southern land of plenty but they seem to like it). The snowdrops come up at all different times and if they're trying to come up right now, they have a good 6 inches of snow to struggle through. No, the first sign of spring is the first territorial call of a cardinal. I heard one this morning. Hooray!!!! Now we just need to get that groundhog to agree....