As in Minnesota, spring remains a work in progress in northeast Nebraska.

Oh, by virtue of being 250 miles to the southwest of Mankato, there already is a bit more greenery on the steep hillsides that fall away to the Missouri River flatland.

But otherwise, the terrain remains mainly a study in browns as spring continues to arrive all too slowly.

Usually by the last half of April, a foray into the Nebraska turkey woods is accompanied by the heady fragrance of plum blossoms; alas, such pleasantries this year are still a week away.

But that meteorological spring is on the slow track matters very little to the turkeys.

Here and in Minnesota, the birds are engaged in their biological spring flings, and there is more to it than nice weather; it is the lengthening period of daylight that stirs the ardor of a gobbler.

While pleasant spring mornings are nice and inspire the randy toms to sound off with gusto — music to a turkey hunter’s ears — even in inclement weather, wild turkeys go about the business of procreation.

Indeed, biologists tend to schedule the opening days of spring turkey hunting well after the commencement of the breeding season to allow the birds to conduct at least some of their woodland trysts undisturbed by hunting pressure.

Here in Nebraska, hunters in the first segment of the wild turkey season were snakebit by a nearly uninterrupted string of rainy, sometimes snowy, windy, chilly days.

While it’s possible to hunt turkeys under such conditions, the lack of gobbling under such inclement conditions can make even a woods crawling with birds seem deserted and send hunters home early and discouraged.

But perhaps those hunters’ loss will be our gain.

For this, the opening weekend of the second turkey hunting season, the weather pundits have predicted nearly perfect weather. Quiet mornings, light breezes, mild temperatures are just what the turkey hunter prays for.

My plan of attack remains the same as it has been: Still in the darkness of the pre-dawn, I’ll pack my vest pockets with a sandwich, a water bottle, an assortment of calls, all chalked and otherwise tuned and slide the shotgun sling over my shoulder.

Guided by the red glow of my headlamp, I’ll follow a winding, two-wheeled trail for a quarter-mile through tall grass to the edge of the timber, and then ever so carefully, quietly, pick my way down the ridge to the meandering creek.

I likely will pause there, perhaps on the ancient deadfall that over the years has grown a coating of thick, rich moss, to await the first hints of dawn to sift through the trees.