The snowbanks are retreating and, for now at least, the black ice has disappeared.

In their place has come a new roadside distraction: Little heaps of mangled black and white, skunks who met their maker behind the wheel of a car and left their unmistakable odor on the wind.

Forget the forsythia, the first robin red breast and the flowing sap of maple trees.

This is road kill season in all its gory splendor.Can spring be far behind?

“When I smell the first skunk, I know that spring is coming,” said Cathy Elliott, wildlife specialist at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. “It’s pretty typical for this time of year.”

Warmer weather and longer days are luring critters like skunks, raccoons, porcupines out of their winter digs and, frequently, into the paths of moving vehicles. Once the grass is exposed on highway roadsides, groundhogs will make their appearance.

Elliot said the animals are out in search of food and mates after a long winter of hibernation or restricted movement and activity.

When the snow pack in the woods melts, deer will start to leave their wintering areas, known as yards, and venture out in search of young green tips on deciduous trees. And Elliot says moose will look for open, breezy areas - like fields and highways - to escape the attacks of swarming insects.

In May, some of Maine’s estimated 29,000 moose will start to lumber onto the asphalt, and their sheer bulk puts drivers at more risk than the animals. About 700 moose-vehicle collisions are reported in the state each year, sometimes leading to death for the occupants of the car.

The deer population in Maine is about 220,000, making for some 3,200 deer-vehicle collisions each year. But because the deer are smaller, motorists in these accidents are more likely to avoid injury.

This fall the state will introduce an experimental moose-hunting season in southern Maine, where the moose population is rising and heavier traffic levels raise the odds of potentially dangerous accidents. Some wildlife officials are hoping a southern Maine hunt will cut down on the danger.

Because animals like skunks, raccoons, porcupines and squirrels live here in abundance, no one knows or has reason to study how many wind up as road kill in Maine every year. But for some species highway mortality is a serious issue.

Blanding’s turtle, a threatened species found in vernal pools in York County, crosses roads during nesting season or while moving to nearby wetlands. Road kill is a significant factor in the turtle population, state biologists say.

In the Bridgton area, residents gather every year in April on a night when frogs and salamanders cross highways en masse to find vernal pools where they can breed.

“Road kill is a real problem in population decline,” said Bridie McGreavy, a conservation biologist and education director at Lakes Environmental Association in Bridgton. She said she tries to drive defensively at night during the spring, when critters are out moving around.

“If you’re on alert and aware that something could jump out at any moment, you’re better able to respond to it,” she said. McGreavy also urges motorists to contact a game warden or police if they hit an animal.

While road kill is part of the scenery for most, it has been an object of research and education for some.Biologists at Saguaro National Park in Arizona spent eight years on a study that found more than 53,000 rabbits, quail, gila monsters, desert tortoises and other vertebrates were killed each year on park roads.

Michael J. Starr, a geography professor at Southern Illinois University, led a group of students on a road-kill study in 2004, finding that 58 percent of kills were mammals, 32 percent were birds and 10 percent were amphibians and reptiles.

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