In spite of setbacks weather-wise, spring is still breaking out.

Tree and shrub leaf and flower buds are bursting. Pine candles are elongating, forming seed and pollen cones. Perennials, including ginseng, are emerging. Morels are coming and ready to join a few of their watchmen. Turkeys are busy mating. Bluebirds are incubating and brooding. Asparagus, chives and rhubarb are on plates. This weekend trout may be keepers.

The green curtain, as it’s called, continues to close us in, to the satisfaction of bird watchers waiting for orioles and ruby-throated hummingbirds, and turkey hunters.

Mushrooms have begun in earnest, especially in sun-washed spots.

This will continue throughout much of May, but become easier as the fruiting bodies get larger faster; then vegetation will begin hiding them again as they start sporulating to disseminate to populate new areas. This, too, is frustrating to gatherers who like the tried and true locations.

While watching eagles, hawks and bluebird babies, one has to be amazed at how fast these animals grow, faster it seems than any other group of little ones.

Between incubating and then brooding, adults have an aptitude of providing warmth and dryness one day and air conditioning the next.

Trout season is open for keeps this weekend, as are many traditional waters for other gamefish, adding to those areas where fish taking has continued throughout much of the year.

Field warden Dale Hochhausen, of the Mississippi River Team out of La Crosse County, was selected DNR’s Warden of the Year and earned the coveted Haskell Noyes Conservation Warden Efficiency Award. This award is commonly referred to as “The Watch” and was initiated in 1930 by the Noyes family when the pocket time piece was first presented to Warden Ernie Swift. Each winner, one per year, receives a gold watch during a banquet for that occasion.

While a number of turkey toms taken by early season hunters have been on the light side, due in part to the snowy winter, Riley Armenta, 11, took a 30-pound bird into possession during a Learn to Hunt session centered out of Dodgeville. Riley, a fifth-grader in Verona, was hunting in Dane County.

The third period, called “C,” opened May 1. The season closes May 28.

Watch for fawns to begin appearing during the next several weeks.

Keep up with spring’s continuing occurrences. They happen but once a year.

— Jerry Davis is an Argyle native and a freelance writer who lives in Barneveld. He can be reached at sivadjam@mhtc.net or at 608-924-1112.