Yesterday evening two friends and their dog came by and sat with us two and our dog on the patio. We waved to neighbors walking with their dogs, pushing strollers, riding bikes. Everyone out enjoying the warm weather.

As we sat and talked, twilight drifted in and a trio of bats flitted overhead. The warm weather had called them out, too. I worried that these bats might not find enough insects up there to eat to replenish the energy they were flapping away hunting for them. After all, this is only the second week of March and a cold snap is predicted for tomorrow.

Of course, we will go back inside the house and close the windows. We’ll put on socks and sweaters and twist the thermostat. We’ve almost normalized these spurts of premature spring, these extended summers with stretches of killer heat, these long autumns and short winters with a bitter cold week or two thrown in.

I doubt these changes are that easy for bats and birds. The traveling birds seem to arrive earlier every year. Mornings here are already loud with the song. Yesterday I watched the local avian residents quarrel over bird houses and gather nesting materials. But if the insects already hatched in the heat of the last few days, will they survive through the next week of cold weather to be food for the bats and the baby birds soon to start cheeping in the nests?

How can insects, flowers, plants, birds and bats remain in sync when the weather isn’t?