Singing frogs are looking for love. Sweet sap is flowing from the maple trees. Striking migratory birds are returning to their northerly nests.
Spring is about transformation, a season often marked by its dynamic sights, smells, sounds and tastes. As humans change the climate, our experience of the season is changing, too.
Here are just a few of the ways that climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is transforming our spring senses.
HEARING: A quieter chorus
It sounds a bit like a finger running over a fine-tooth comb, but it’s about as loud as a lawn mower.
It’s hard to spot — at only 2.5 centimetres long — but when the chorus frog emerges in early spring its mating call can be heard from a kilometre away.
Story continues below advertisement
To Jeffrey Ethier, it’s the most iconic sound of spring’s arrival.
“You can kind of feel your eardrums vibrating,” said Ethier, a PhD candidate at the University …