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Video: As color pops across Connecticut, 'rites of spring' are everywhere

Connecticut Public Radio | By Mark Mirko

Published April 24, 2025 at 9:58 AM EDT

We get used to the monochrome of winter and, for some, the season's narrow palette is an opportunity to rest our eyes.

Spring's alarm clock of color, though, is a gentle one. The Connecticut River swells with winter's melted snow, maple sap is boiled one last time, forsythias bloom and chickens begin scratching in ground only recently warmed.

Watch as winter fades to resplendent pops of color across Connecticut.

Dusky lights illuminate Riverside Park in Hartford, March 18, 2025, as snow melt surges the waters of the Connecticut river onto normally dry land.

From an upstairs room of his family’s sugar shack, Luke Case of Sweet Wind Farm directs maple sap from a holding tank to a boiler below during one of the last boils of the shack’s season, March 20, 2025.

Snow from an early spring storm rests on Siberian Squill preparing to open in Mansfield, Connecticut, April 11, 2025

Birdwatchers in Wethersfield peer through binoculars March 23, 2025, during a bird and hike organized by the Connecticut Land Conservation Council and Great Meadows Conservation Trust.

A flock of starlings perch and fly around trees in Mansfield, Ct, April 12, 2025.

An estimated 20,000 people lined the streets of downtown Hartford, Connecticut, April 13, 2025, celebrating the NCAA Championship win by the UConn women’s basketball team. The win marked the 12th national title of legendary head coach Geno Auriemma's career.

Cherry blossoms appear on trees in New Haven’s Wooster square April 16, 2025.

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Mark Mirko

Mark Mirko is Deputy Director of Visuals at Connecticut Public and his photography has been a fixture of Connecticut’s photojournalism landscape for the past two decades. Mark led the photography department at Prognosis, an English language newspaper in Prague, Czech Republic, and was a staff-photographer at two internationally-awarded newspaper photography departments, The Palm Beach Post and The Hartford Courant. Mark holds a Masters degree in Visual Communication from Ohio University, where he served as a Knight Fellow, and he has taught at Trinity College and Southern Connecticut State University. A California native, Mark now lives in Connecticut’s quiet-corner with his family, three dogs and a not-so-quiet flock of chickens.

See stories by Mark Mirko

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT is an initiative from Connecticut Public, the state’s local NPR and PBS station, to elevate Latino stories and expand programming that uplifts and informs our Latino communities. Visit CTPublic.org/latino for more stories and resources. For updates, sign up for the SOMOS CONNECTICUT newsletter at ctpublic.org/newsletters.

SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

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