All of a sudden, spring

I had a post all planned bemoaning the fact that spring is still very far away in these parts. In previous years, the snails are often laying eggs by this date on the calendar. Given the winter we've all had, it's no surprise that they are still nowhere to be seen, let alone reproductive.

I went to the beach on Tuesday (the day after a freak snow) to bring snails back to the lab for some experiments, and this is what it looked like.

The beach on a not-quite-spring morning.
The profile of the beach is still very steep due to winter erosion, and there were very few signs of life.

Berms of dead Crepidula fornicata shells were everywhere on the beach.
That's typical for late winter around here.

But today everything seemed different. It was the first day I was able to go exploring in shirtsleeves this year, and I went down to the harbor to get seawater for the lab. We don't have running saltwater in my building, but we are close enough to the shore that I can go get it when I need it. I found this.

Cyprids! Each of the brown blurry dots in the water is a larval barnacle, looking for a place to settle.

Cyprids, not yet metamorphosed, that have attached themselves to a dead blade of grass.

Cyprids are the last larval stage of a barnacle, and their job is basically to find a place to live as an adult before metamorphosing. They look like little beans with eyes and antennules that they use to sense physical and chemical cues on the substrate. They tend to settle gregariously, preferring to be near other cyprids and adults of the same species.

These cyprids have metamorphosed and become juvenile barnacles. They are probably not long for this world, because this dead blade of grass is not a stable habitat and will almost certainly wash away before the barnacles become adults.

The cyprids are the first clear sign of spring around here, as reliable as the many signs used in the terrestrial world to indicate that we are finally through the winter. So in the few short days since my field trip on Tuesday, things have turned a corner and are looking up. Field season is imminent.