The Xantus hummingbird weighs only a few grams, yet somehow spends its life doing things that seem impossible. Its wings beat so fast they blur. Its heart races at a speed that would terrify most creatures. It can hover in mid air, fly backwards, change direction in an instant and travel from flower to flower with an energy that seems completely out of proportion to its size. What I love about it is that it lives with its attention fixed on what is blooming. It is constantly searching for the next source of nectar, the next flower opening to the sun, the next opportunity hidden amongst the branches. Maybe that is why I have always loved spring.
What is your favorite season of year? Why?
So it’s currently winter in South Australia. The paddocks around us are green, the mornings are cold, and most sensible people are focused on getting through the season. Meanwhile I find myself thinking about spring. Not because I dislike winter, but because spring has always been the season where something wakes up in me.
Looking back, most of the projects that have shaped my life seem to have started in spring. New books, new artworks, new ideas for the podcast, new plans for the farm. I do not know whether it is the longer days, the warmer weather, or some ancient instinct reminding me that growth season has arrived. Whatever it is, my brain starts filling with possibilities.
Nature seems to be having the same conversation at exactly the same time. Trees push out fresh leaves. Birds become busy. Insects reappear. Gardens start looking less like survivors and more like optimists. Everywhere you look, life is beginning again.
The older I get, the more I appreciate that spring is not really about achievement. Nothing is finished in spring. Everything is halfway. Buds have not become flowers yet. Seedlings have not become vegetables yet. It is a season built almost entirely on potential.
I think that is why it appeals to me so much. Most of my favourite things started as unlikely little ideas that probably looked ridiculous to everyone else. A bearded dude drawing obscure animals. A children’s book about creatures most people have never heard of. A podcast asking how artists can stop starving. None of those things arrived fully formed. They started as tiny shoots poking through the soil.
The Xantus hummingbird understands that better than most. It does not wait until every flower in the landscape is blooming. It notices the first signs and moves towards them. It trusts that more flowers will appear along the way.
That feels like spring to me. Not certainty. Not success. Just enough warmth, enough light and enough hope to start moving again.
Kids Book Illustrator Andy C Marshall 