A sunny, yellow smile on a sunny Sunday morning. Less common than the purple colored violets, the Downy Yellow Violet adds some color on the woodland floor along with the other violets in purples and blues and the pinks from the Spring Beauties.
Downy Yellow Violet
The trees are finally leafing out again but when the leaves first emerge, they almost have a fall feel with colorful shades of yellows, reds, browns and greens.
Springtime Barn
Pretty in yellow? Some fields and lawns are covered in a pretty yellow color, thanks to the dandelion, which is hated some people. I know the bees are enjoying the pretty yellow blossoms and I even think there enough blooming so I can give my mother her Mother’s Day flowers now without the bees missing them.
I don’t mind the yellow but I don’t like when the dandelions turn white and the seeds start blowing since when I mow through them, the little parachute seem to end up by the engine fan and clogs it or get in my face.
Pretty in Yellow
My yard has been filled with colorful birds with the return of summer birds intermixed with the year round birds; Indigo Buntings, Bluebirds, Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles, Orchard Orioles, Scarlet Tanager, Cardinal, Yellow Warblers and the Goldfinches provide a rainbow effect outside.
The birds have been emptying the feeders at an alarming rate and there are fights at the feeders. The Goldfinches are rather strict vegetarians, selecting an entirely vegetable diet and only inadvertently swallowing an occasional insect, so there is a waiting line for the sunflower seed feeder. Sometimes it is hard at times to pick out the Goldfinches among the dandelions when they are searching for the fallen seed.
Yellow on a Stick
A warmer day finally revealed more wildflowers but many of them are spring ephemeral, which emerge quickly in the spring and die back to their underground parts after a short growth and reproduction phase, so they disappear quickly from the woods. The Adder’s Tongue, Trillums, Bloodroot, Spring Beauty, and the Virginia Bluebells are all spring ephemeral plants.
The Virginia Bluebells buds are pink which transition to purple and finally to a sky blue color so one plant provides a rainbow of colors. Only a few blossoms in the back have turned to the blue color so I might have a few more days to take pictures of them before they fade away for another year.
Colorful Virginia Bluebells
It is finally getting warm enough to plant some flowers, which the chipmunks like to ‘unplant’ for me and now they will be even braver to come on the porch to unearth the plants since my cat, Dutch, went to the happy hunting ground as he passed away yesterday afternoon. Hunting chipmunks was the rare time had patience as he could watch the hole where chipmunk had disappeared for hours. He wasn’t very successful but seemed to enjoy it and still had one last hunt Saturday evening even if his eye sight might have been failing him in his old age since I had to point out the chipmunk for him.
The Last Hunt
This single, nodding flower was lucky compared to its fellow Yellow Adder’s Tongue which was eaten off by a deer and only the lower part of the twin leaves remain. Only when the plant’s corm becomes large enough, the second leaf and blossom will appear. I have a several patches of the Adder’s Tongues but very few have a blossom as the area they are growing in are not as fertile soil as it needs to be so all single leaves. So it isn’t nice when the deer eat one of the few blossoms I get.
I learned the name Adder’s Tongue for Erythronium americanum, and it is in reference to the tongue-like shape of the flowering shoot as it rises up in spring and the supposed resemblance of the flower to the open mouth of a snake. Another common name for the flower is Trout Lily for the similarity between the leaf markings and those of the brown or brook trout. Some other names are Fawn Lily because of spotted leaves and the two leaves being fawn ears and the misleading Dog-tooth Violet name, since it is not a member of the violet family, but named for the corm resembling dog teeth.
Lone Yellow Adder’s Tongue
Nestled amongst the farm fields of Southwest Wisconsin, you can stumble upon small rural country churches like St. Peter Catholic Church near Cuba City, Wisconsin.
Country Church
It seemed very wrong to have to wear a stocking cap and jacket when mowing lawn yesterday but then it wasn’t real warm and clouds dropping sprinkles on me kept occurring most of the day. This storm cloud coming from the north glowed as the sun was setting to the west, but I wasn’t looking at the pretty colors but dark streaks of rain at the bottom and I was trying to guess if I would get wet again or not.
Rain on the Way
I don’t know if the Great White Trilliums have finally opened up, as these three and all the other the Trillium grandiflorums have disappeared along my path to the pond. There are some stems in spots, or like these three, no evidence left that there had been a trillium growing there except for the photo taken a few days ago.
Great White Trillium as well as other trilliums are a favored food of white-tailed deer. Indeed if trilliums are available deer will seek these plants, with a preference for Great White Trillium, to the exclusion of others. If they keep eating the same trilliums each year, it can lead to extinction of those plants along my path and then the Nodding Trilliums will have to be the new favorite deer snack.
Great White Trillium No More
