A little sunshine goes a long way on a cloudy day
- John Lorson: The Rail Trail Naturalist
- January 15, 2021
- 787
The first sunshine anyone had seen in weeks punched its way through a thinning deck of clouds just before sunset at Maple Grove School near Apple Creek. Even when the sun is hidden behind the clouds, plenty of solar radiation still makes its way to the ground.
A seasonal milestone is just around the corner for me. With the winter solstice now nearly a month behind us and a little over nine and a half hours of daylight gracing each day, I can almost make it down the trail to work and back at the end of the day without running the headlight on my bike. If the sun ever chooses to actually shine around here again, I’ll be able to complete the circuit for sure. But as I write this column, we’ve been locked in what seems like a weeks-long stretch of gray days, and it’s begun to feel like we haven’t seen the sun since last summer.
A lack of sunlight can mess with you that way — and it’s more than just a feeling. Our biology depends on a certain amount of sunlight to get the job done. If a string of gray days has begun to tint your demeanor toward a cloudy shade of blue, you are not alone. Studies suggest nearly 1-in-5 Americans, especially those in the more northern portions of the country, suffer at least some seasonally triggered depression.
Here in Ohio, the eighth-cloudiest state in the union, short-duration winter days teamed with a heaping helping of thick cloud cover can make life seem like a joyless slog through a tunnel of fog. The good news is there’s light at the end of that tunnel, and even a little bit of it can make a big difference.
Most everyone knows overexposure to sunlight can be harmful in a number of ways up to and including skin cancer. But what some folks may not realize is a certain amount of sunlight is vital to proper body function. Moderate exposure to sunlight triggers the brain’s release of the hormone serotonin, a widely recognized mood booster and an important ingredient in maintaining mental focus and calm. I can assure you (anecdotally, anyhow) that when the sun pokes out after a string of gloomy days, the mood of everyone in my circle seems to take a big leap upward, my own mood included.
Mood-boosting is just a start. Sunlight’s most dramatic benefit on the body is the stimulation of Vitamin D production in the skin. While “artificial sun” lamps, vitamin supplements and fortified milk can limp you along through the darkness to a certain extent, just 15-30 minutes of real sunlight on your face and arms can balloon availability of this trace nutrient, which is an essential ingredient in over 1,000 different chemical processes within the body.
While all of us endlessly crave those clear, cloudless, sun-drenched days, it’s important to note that when it comes to sunlight, every little bit counts. When my town recently installed two multi-acre solar farms to augment our electric-generating plant, I was fascinated to see the peaks and valleys of energy production plotted out live over the course of hours, days and months on a connected website.
The daily spikes go up and down, but one thing that jumped out at me right away was that even in the cloudiest times and even in the dead of winter, there was always at least a bit of electricity being generated each day. That reminded me that even though we might not be able to see it, the sun is always hard at work, making things happen down here on Earth. Get outside and gather some for yourself.
In other interesting news, barely was the ink dry on my recent column comparing my pigeon-munching, bell-tower-living downtown Cooper’s hawk to a peregrine falcon like the one that set up shop for a week or two last spring in Millersburg than the latter showed up again — and in the very same spot as before.
Birding friends alerted me on Facebook that the falcon had been spotted, and I walked right out the door of my office, looked up at the south face of the tallest building in town, and there, perched on top of the letter “C” of the CSB sign, was a peregrine falcon.
While I have no way of ascertaining whether or not it’s the very same bird as before, I’d lean heavily toward the possibility. Birds seem to remember “a really good spot” while migrating from one year to the next. The bank perch worked out well for him last time around, so why not stop in and hang out a while? The peregrine may not stick around as long as last time, however, because the Cooper’s hawk has been working the pigeon population from dawn to dusk every day. You’d better get downtown soon if you want to see a show.
Remember, if you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email jlorson@alonovus.com.