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144 free Spring Time trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
51 free Spring Time trivia questions with answers. Spring is the season of lambs, tadpoles, tulips and clocks jumping forward an hour, and this quiz covers all of it. The first half is spring trivia for kids: baby animal names, why leaves are green, which country gave Washington its cherry trees, and what a groundhog has to do with the weather. Most 8 to 12 year olds can play along, and plenty of grown-ups will learn something too. The second half gets tougher. Expect questions on the equinox, why the Earth has seasons at all, Japan's hanami parties, Thailand's water-fight new year and a few odd corners like boxing hares and the Ice Saints. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia, the National Park Service or another primary source, and you can see the citation under each explanation. Play it as a classroom warm-up, a family game on a rainy April afternoon, or just to find out whether you really know what a spring tide is.
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Q 01What astronomical event typically marks the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere?
Vernal Equinox
The Vernal Equinox marks the start of northern spring: the Sun crosses the celestial equator heading north between 19 and 21 March, and in the Americas, which run behind UTC, it can fall as early as the 19th.
Q 02In the traditional Irish calendar, on what date does spring begin?
1 February
1 February, the feast of Imbolc, opens spring in the old Irish reckoning, which puts the solstices and equinoxes mid-season; that is why the June solstice is called Midsummer.
Q 03Astronomically, spring in the Northern Hemisphere concludes with the occurrence of which event?
Summer Solstice
Daylight keeps lengthening through the season until the solstice around 21 June, the longest day of the year in the north.
Q 04When does astronomical spring typically begin in the Southern Hemisphere?
September Equinox
South of the equator the seasons flip, so Australians, South Africans and Brazilians count September, October and November as their spring months.
Q 05Which spring constellation contains Arcturus, the brightest star of the northern sky?
Boötes
Boötes, the Herdsman: its orange giant Arcturus rises high on spring evenings and is found by following the arc of the Big Dipper's handle.
Q 06What is the primary reason our planet experiences different seasons?
The tilt of its axis
The tilt of its axis, about 23.4 degrees, is what gives Earth seasons, not distance: the planet is nearest the Sun in early January, mid-winter for the north.
Q 07Which three months constitute meteorological spring in the Northern Hemisphere?
March, April, May
Meteorologists define spring as the months of March, April, and May in the Northern Hemisphere for consistent climate data comparison.
Q 08What term is used for the day when daylight and night are exactly equal in length?
Equilux
Equilux is the day of exactly equal daylight and night. In the north it falls a few days before the March equinox, because atmospheric refraction and the width of the solar disc give daylight a head start.
Q 09What is Japan's centuries-old custom of partying outdoors beneath blossoming cherry trees called?
Hanami
Hanami means 'flower viewing'. Cherry trees bloom from late March to early May across most of Japan, and parties held after dark under lantern-lit branches are called yozakura.
Q 10Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year held each April, is known worldwide for what public activity?
Citywide water fights
Citywide water fights are Songkran's signature: the soaking symbolises cleansing at the turn of the year. The festival falls on 13 April, and UNESCO inscribed it on its intangible heritage list in December 2023.
Q 11On the eve of the Hindu festival of colours, a bonfire marks the burning of which demoness?
Holika
In the legend she was granted immunity to fire and tried to kill her nephew Prahlada by holding him in a blaze, but she burned instead and the boy survived. The bonfire ritual marks the end of winter and the start of spring.
Q 12In German and central European gardening lore, the Eisheiligen or "Ice Saints" are held to mark what?
The last expected night frosts
The Ice Saints mark the last expected night frosts. Their feast days run from 11 to 14 May, closing with 'Cold Sophia' on the 15th, and many southern German gardeners wait until they have passed before planting out.
Q 13The induction of flowering by a prolonged spell of winter cold is known to botanists as what?
Q 21A tadpole in a spring pond breathes through gills and swims with a tail before growing into which animal?
A frog
A frog starts life as a tadpole that breathes with gills and swims with a tail, and both disappear as it turns into an air-breathing adult with legs.
Q 22What is a baby deer called?
Fawn
A fawn is the young of smaller deer; the young of big species such as moose and elk are called calves instead, so the word depends on the size of the parents.
Q 23A caterpillar munching on spring leaves is the young form of which flying insect?
Butterfly
A caterpillar is the larva of a butterfly (or a moth); the life cycle runs egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, adult.
Vernalization
Vernalization is the cold requirement for flowering: winter wheat and many biennials need weeks near 1–7 degrees Celsius before they will flower, which keeps seed set in spring rather than autumn.
Q 14Apart from two bucks competing, which pairing commonly 'boxes' among hares in spring?
A female striking a male
Normally shy and nocturnal, hares turn bold and daylight-active in spring. Does hit at bucks to signal they are not ready to mate or to test a suitor's persistence; this courtship display is the source of the phrase "mad as a March hare."
Q 15What marking does the spring peeper, an early-calling frog of eastern North America, carry on its back?
A dark cross
The pattern gives the tiny chorus frog its species name, Pseudacris crucifer, from the Latin for "cross-bearer." Adults reach only about 25 to 38 millimetres long.
Q 16The Boston Marathon is traditionally run on which Massachusetts holiday?
Patriots' Day
Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April, is Boston Marathon day. First run in 1897 after the marathon's revival at the 1896 Olympics, it is the world's oldest annual marathon, from Hopkinton to Boylston Street.
Q 17"April is the cruellest month" opens which poem of 1922?
The Waste Land
The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot's 434-line modernist landmark, opens its first section, 'The Burial of the Dead', with the line. It first appeared in October 1922 in Eliot's magazine The Criterion.
Q 18At which lunar phases does a spring tide, unrelated to the season, occur?
New moon and full moon
Spring tides come at new moon and full moon, when Sun, Moon and Earth line up (a syzygy) and the Sun's pull reinforces the Moon's. At the quarter moons they sit at right angles, giving weaker neap tides.
Q 19Spring fields fill with newborn sheep skipping beside their ewes; what is the everyday name for a baby sheep?
Lamb
A lamb grows up to be a ewe (female) or a ram (male), and a young sheep that has already been weaned is sometimes called a hogget.
Q 20What is a baby goat called?
Kid
Kid meant a young goat first: it comes from Old Norse, and people only later started using it for children. A joey is a kangaroo, a cub a bear, a pup a dog.
Q 24The American robin's eggs are such a distinctive colour that a paint shade is named after them; which colour?
Blue
Robin egg blue is the shade, a blue-green cyan; the mother lays three to five eggs and sits on the nest alone while the male keeps watch.
Q 25Which European country, famous for its spring tulip fields, saw the 1630s tulip mania?
Netherlands
The Netherlands is the world's leading tulip-bulb grower, mostly for export, and its 1630s tulip mania is often called history's first speculative bubble.
Q 26The daffodil, one of the first blooms of spring, is the national flower of which country?
Wales
Wales: people pin a daffodil to their coats on St David's Day, 1 March, and the flower is also the emblem of cancer charities in many countries.
Q 27Washington, D.C.'s famous cherry trees were a 1912 gift from which country?
Japan
Japan sent 3,020 trees in the 1912 shipment, a gift from the city of Tokyo; First Lady Helen Taft planted the first two herself beside the Tidal Basin on 27 March 1912.
Q 28On which date do Pennsylvanians watch a groundhog named Phil to predict whether spring will come early?
February 2
February 2 is Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney: if Phil sees his shadow, winter lasts six more weeks; if he doesn't, spring is on its way.
Q 29According to the old saying, what do April showers bring?
May flowers
May flowers need April rain, so the saying is practical before it is poetic; people also use it to mean good things follow hard times.
Q 30New spring leaves are green because of which pigment inside them?
Chlorophyll
Chlorophyll soaks up red and blue light to power the plant and bounces green back, which is the colour we see; the carotene beneath only shows once it breaks down in autumn.