Spring Time
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192 free Spring Time trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 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.
30 of 192 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which yellow spring flower do the French call 'pissenlit', or 'wet-the-bed'?
Dandelion
Dandelion leaves are a diuretic, hence 'pissenlit'; the English name is French too, from 'dent de lion', lion's tooth, for the jagged leaves.
Q 02In the traditional Irish calendar, spring begins on 1 February, the feast of which saint?
Saint Brigid
Saint Brigid's feast shares 1 February with the Gaelic festival of Imbolc, which marks the start of spring; families weave crosses from rushes in her name for it.
Q 03Astronomically, spring in the Northern Hemisphere concludes with the occurrence of which event?
Summer Solstice
Summer Solstice: daylight keeps lengthening all spring until this longest day, around 21 June; from then on the days shorten, even though summer has only just begun.
Q 04In which Disney film does Friend Owl warn that nearly everybody gets 'twitterpated' in the springtime?
Bambi
Bambi gave English the word: the 1942 film coined 'twitterpated' for Friend Owl's speech about being lovestruck, and dictionaries now list it with that origin.
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
March, April, May: forecasters use whole calendar months because the equinox and solstice dates shift, which lets them compare a season's climate statistics cleanly from one year to the next.
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, 'flower viewing', carries on after dark as yozakura, with paper lanterns hung among the trees, and the best picnic spots are claimed with ground sheets hours ahead.
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
Holika, protected from fire in the legend, carried her nephew Prahlada onto a pyre to kill him for her brother the demon king; she burned to death instead and the devout boy came out unharmed.
Q 12In German gardening lore, the Eisheiligen or 'Ice Saints' are held to mark what?
The last expected night frosts
The last expected night frosts: the saints' feast days run from 11 to 15 May, ending with 'Cold Sophia', and many gardeners hold back tender plants until they have passed.
Q 13The induction of flowering by a prolonged spell of winter cold is known to botanists as what?
Vernalization
Q 21What happens to a tadpole's tail as it turns into a frog?
Absorbed into the body
Absorbed into the body: the tail is never shed; it shrinks away as the legs grow and lungs take over from the gills.
Q 22The young of large deer such as moose and elk are called what, rather than fawns?
Calves
Calves: only the smaller deer have fawns; a moose or elk is a bull or a cow, as with cattle, and its young is named to match.
Q 23Monarch butterflies returning each spring lay their eggs on which plant, the only food their caterpillars eat?
Milkweed
Milkweed is toxic, and the caterpillars store its poisons in their bodies, so the adult butterfly's bright orange wings warn birds that it tastes foul.
Vernalization is the cold requirement for flowering: winter wheat and many biennials must sit through weeks of winter cold before they can 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
A female striking a male is the usual bout: a doe turns and boxes a buck who chases her too persistently, the spring antics behind the phrase 'mad as a March hare'.
Q 15The spring peeper, a tiny frog of eastern North America, calls in massed choruses often likened to what?
Sleigh bells
Sleigh bells: each male repeats one high peep, much like a chick's, and a pond full of them calling together blurs into a jingling chorus as spring begins.
Q 16The Boston Marathon is traditionally run on which Massachusetts holiday?
Patriots' Day
Patriots' Day was fixed on 19 April, the date of the first race in 1897; when the holiday moved to the third Monday of April in 1969, the marathon moved with it.
Q 17"April is the cruellest month" opens which poem of 1922?
The Waste Land
The Waste Land is dedicated to Ezra Pound as 'il miglior fabbro', the better craftsman: his editing pared T. S. Eliot's draft to roughly half its original length.
Q 18Spring tides have nothing to do with springtime; at which lunar phases do they 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 19According to the weather proverb, March comes in like a lion and goes out like what?
A lamb
A lamb: the proverb holds that a March which arrives with stormy, lion-like weather will end mild and gentle, as winter gives way to spring.
Q 20'Kid' first meant the young of which farm animal?
Goat
Goat: 'kid' came into English from Old Norse for a young goat and only later became slang for a child; 'kidnap' then joined it to 'nap', thieves' slang for snatch.
Q 24The American robin's eggs are such a distinctive colour that a paint shade is named after them; which colour?
Blue
Blue: 'robin's-egg blue' is the shade, and the female alone sits on the clutch, usually about four eggs, for roughly two weeks until they hatch.
Q 25Which spring flower takes its name, via Turkish, from a Persian word for 'turban'?
Tulip
Tulip and turban are the same word twice over: both reached English through Turkish 'tülbent' from Persian 'dulband'.
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's Tidal Basin cherry trees arrived in 1912 as a gift from the mayor of which city?
Tokyo
Tokyo: Mayor Yukio Ozaki's first gift of 2,000 trees arrived in 1910 infested with insects and had to be burned, so the city sent 3,020 healthy ones two years later.
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 absorbs little of the green, which is the colour we see; the carotene beneath only shows once it breaks down in autumn.