The Nodding Trilliums are blooming, although it is easy to miss the blossoms since they hang under the leaves. But hiding under the leaves, don’t always protect them from the deer seeing them and eating the plant. And it is hard to get a picture of the blossoms since have to get down and look up. Trillium cernuum is also known as Nodding Wakerobin and Whip-poor-will flower. The Drooping Trillium is very similar and hard to tell the ‘drooping’ ones from the ‘nodding’ ones.
Nodding Trillium
The last of the oaks are finally leafing out and it finally looks like summer, although not all the trees survived the long, harsh winter and some big and young trees will not leaf out again.
But the sun is out and it is a nice summer day for a change so I just might have to get my hammock out under the trees.
Trees Green Again
Monday brings another start of a work week but the male Eastern Bluebird has his work done building a nest for his new family already. He brings a couple pieces of building material to the nesting box and goes in and out and fluttering his wings and catches the eye of a female to his nesting site. After that the female does all the work, building the nest with grasses and pine needles. I noticed the male would inspect her progress every once in a while and she would have to push him in the butt when he was blocking the hole while she was making her numerous trips for material. He even dropped a pine needle back outside after he went inside once and I wondered if he got scolded for messing up her work.
Male Bluebird Inspector
If you take a Sunday afternoon drive around the area, you might discover the roadside ditches filled with pink color since the wild geraniums are blooming. Geranium maculatum is another wildflower with lots of names although I have only known it as wild geranium but other common names include alum root, alum bloom, cranesbill, spotted cranesbill, wild cranesbill, spotted geranium, and wood geranium. The fruit capsule looks like a long beak-like column which resembling a crane’s bill and why it has those other common names.
This wildflower was used medicinally by Native Americans to treat diarrhea and open sores or wounds. I didn’t try it on the deer fly bite on my arm so I might have to check that plant property out.
Ditches in Pink
Anyone living in Wisconsin knows snow is a big part of life, but I do enjoy spring when things are blooming and the landscape turns green again. I took a photo of this barn in the winter and while the red provided a nice contrast against the white snow, I do prefer the red and green instead (even with some yellow from weeds) and some pinks too.
Red, Green with some Yellow and Pink
According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology web site, the Mourning Dove’s nest is “a flimsy assembly of pine needles, twigs, and grass stems, unlined and with little insulation for the young.” Well that describes this Mourning Dove nest found on a snapped off tree, although I wouldn’t have noticed it if I didn’t scare her off the nest while on a hike.
Mourning Dove Nest
Wisconsin became a state on May 29, 1848 and when the state flowers were first nominated in 1908, the school children voted for the wildflower on Arbor Day 1909. They selected the wood violet over the wild rose, trailing arbutus, and the white water lily.
The wood violet is commonly seen in wet woodland, meadow areas, along roadsides and on my lawn this year. They are also in my woods and it seemed like a fitting picture to have a wood violet near some wood.
Woodsy Wood Violets
On a warm, sunny afternoon, one might spot turtles basking on logs, stumps or on the backs of other turtles. The painted turtle has existed for 15 million years and can even survive the cold, harsh Wisconsin winters by hibernating in the muddy bottoms of waterways.
Basking helps regulate the body temperature of this cold-blooded reptile which needs an internal body temperature between 63 and 73°F to be active. The turtle starts its day at sunrise, emerging from the water to bask for several hours which helps rid them of parasitic leeches and warm the body temperature. Once warmed for activity, the turtle returns to the water to forage. Then the day is spent both basking and foraging. At night, the turtle drops to the bottom of its water body or perches on an underwater object and sleeps.
Painted Turtles
There are more signs that spring may truly be here since the air is filled with the scent of blooming trees, like this flowering crab tree.
Spring is in the Air
On this Memorial Day, in all the normal fun holiday activities planned, I hope people remember the real reason for the holiday; a holiday to remember the men and women who died while serving in our country’s armed forces, like this soldier who died just a few weeks before the end of World War I.
Remembering the Fallen Soldier
