Spring sprouts with changes hikers can relish

On Monday, back in Spokane after a week in a foreign country, I headed into the lowland forests just out of town to exercise the dog and see what had changed in my absence.

I was not surprised to see the arrowleaf balsamroot blooming or the white serviceberry blossoms brightening the hillsides.

A pair of pygmy nuthatches were nesting in a snag I check out each year, and I picked the first ticks of the season off of my Brittany pup, Ranger.

It’s amazing how much the outdoors changes in a week this time of year.

I was most impressed to find good numbers of morels fruiting. I’d seen them in burned areas before I’d left town. But I was hiking through a ponderosa pine forest I’ve frequented for years during spring but have never seen the mushrooms in the past. Fire hasn’t “refreshed” the area for at least 30 years, but some light logging apparently disturbed the ground in a way that suited the mushrooms.

Morels are always a delightful surprise, but especially when they pop up where you don’t expect them. They also were a delight surprised on the family dinner table Monday night.

Keep your eye out for morels where you haven’t seen them before.

Wild turkey gobblers also seemed more active than when I’d left. Certainly they’ve been active in their mating season for weeks. I was surrounded by turkey talk and bagged two toms when the spring gobbler season opened on April 15.

The difference this week is that the gobblers seemed to be talking more during mid-morning. That signals that many hens have been bred and gobblers appear to be a bit more eager or maybe even desperate to sow their seeds.

In my experience, longbeards in far Eastern Washington are most vulnerable to a call in the first week of May.

Gobblers and morels often are found in the same habitat at the same time, I realized as I walked. Upon returning home, I stopped by the freezer in the garage.

On Tuesday night, the family learned that wild turkey breast and morels pair very well on the dinner table, too.