You don’t have to look far to see signs of spring. From the budding of trees and the warming of temperatures to the animals coming out of their winter hideaways, the promise of new birth and fresh color fills the springtime air. In our area, signs of the change in season have been popping up for weeks. La Niña provided a mild winter with above normal rainfall, and we’ve enjoyed some wonderful early spring-like weather.

The first day of spring is usually March 20 but sometimes, like last year, it falls on the 21st to correspond with the vernal equinox when the sun rests directly above the equator on its apparent trip northward. As the earth revolves around the sun, the Northern Hemisphere tilts more toward the sun as winter turns to spring. Conversely, the Southern Hemisphere tilts more away from the sun ushering in the beginning of autumn for people in that hemisphere.

The word “equinox” is derived from Latin and means “equal nights.” Around March 20 (or 21st as the case may be), sunrise and sunset are about twelve hours apart everywhere on Earth. Because of that, some folks mistakenly believe that day and night on that date are of equal length. In reality, though, the day is a little longer and here’s why. Sunrise occurs when the top of the sun rather than its center is on the horizon. But the sun actually appears to be above the horizon when it is in fact still below it. That’s because the earth’s atmosphere refracts, or “bends,” light coming from the sun, so we “see” the sun a couple of minutes before it actually rises over the horizon. And if you add the daylight that persists after sunset, you’ll find the day on the equinox is several minutes longer than the night.

Spring is a time of transition, not only for plants and animals, but for the weather, too. It can mean weather extremes from very cold and snowy days to humid and stormy days. Some of the country’s biggest snowfalls have occurred in March and the period from March to May brings severe thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes to much of the south. In the Sacramento region, spring is my favorite season. It means hiking and other outdoor activities, longer days and warmer nights, and myriad opportunities for landscape and wildlife photography.

And let’s lay to rest the myth about your being able to balance a raw egg on end on the first day of spring when, supposedly, the pull of gravity is more equal because the sun is more directly overhead. There’s simply no scientific support for this.

The balancing egg legend apparently got its start in 1945 when a reporter for Life Magazine wrote a story about a Chinese ritual in which people stood eggs on end on the first day of spring. But the Chinese recognized the first day of spring in early February, or about six weeks before the spring equinox! Hmmmm…

Later, in 1983, a hundred New Yorkers got together on March 20 to balance eggs and an article about the event appeared in the New Yorker magazine. A year later, five thousand New Yorkers repeated the tradition on the first day of spring, and the egg legend grew. The truth is that if you can get a raw egg to balance upright on the spring equinox, you can get it to balance any other day of the year. The pull of gravity or the position of the sun in the sky has nothing to do with it.

But balancing egg or no balancing egg, by all means embrace spring! Get outside, listen to the birds and smell the flowers. Take long walks. Explore. Immerse yourself in the newness of the season!