The Yellow Trout Lily might not be as noticeable as Marsh Marigolds, they are interesting find since it doesn’t flower for the first four to seven years. I have a lot of single leaf trout lilies but only a few paired leaves which have the flowers. The lily colonies can be up to 300 years old, although I doubt mine are that old, but only about a half of a percent will have the double leaves and blossom.
Long Wait to Bloom
The goldfinches have regain their summertime bright yellow which helps to spot them in the trees just as the yellow from the marsh marigold stand out against the ground that attracts the returning butterflies to the blossoms.
Yellow in the Marsh
The bird feeder was filled with a range of colors with the blue Indigo Bunting, yellow Goldfinches, red Cardinal, orange Baltimore Orioles, and the red, white and black of the Rose Breasted Grosbeaks. Sometimes there isn’t room at the feeders, especially when my chipmunks keep raiding the jelly feeder and the squirrels trying to get the sunflower seeds. There is even a fight at the bird houses as this bird house had a tree swallow claiming it. The next day a wren was carrying sticks into the house but the following day house sparrows were sitting on it. I guess I might have to build a few more bird houses.
Claiming Bird House
Normally I don’t see these Wood Anemones at the same time as the white colored bloodroots so the woods have an extra white layer with this weird shortened spring season. But there are a mixture of other flowers adding the blues, yellows, purple, brown and green colors too.
More White in the Woods
With the temperature in the 80s today, it is hard to believe that snow was still on the ground last Monday but already my neighbor mowed his lawn in less than a week later. I did see a lot of white in the woods today between the bloodroots and the wood anemones, which is more pleasurable white to see than snow.
Bloodroot White
There was still snow just six days ago but it seems like the weather is skipping over spring as some of the spring wildflowers are done blooming in that short time. And the last of the birds have returned with the arrival of the hummingbirds and house wrens. And the wrens are busy making their nest as soon as they arrived back yesterday.
Gathering Sticks
Watch the busy wren gather sticks to build her nest.
The crop fields were filled with activity today, now that the snow has finally melted this week. Large tractors were working the soil to prepare it for planting and you could hear the noise from the machinery. But in some fields, the noise coming from working the soil was the jingle of harness chains, plodding hoofs and the huffing from horses instead.
Plowing the Field
More birds are returning like the tree swallows and the grosbeaks. The orioles arrived on Monday, or at least the male Baltimore Orioles have. I am not sure why the males come first when it is the females that build the nest so it isn’t like he is getting the house ready. Instead he just complains when I am in the way and he can’t get to the sugar water or the jelly.
Oriole Getting a Drink
This year, the last snow drift melted on Monday but snow can still come in May as it did five years ago when it dumped 18 inches of snow on my yard from the storm that lasted May 1 through the 3rd. The storm caused schools to cancel classes and the weight of the heavy snow snapped a lot of branches. This normally mighty pine tree looked very limp and wimpy as the limbs hung down under the wet snow.
Five Years Ago
After a rain shower last night, it was another nice day with more signs of spring returning as well as revealing the harsh winter. I saw a rabbit this evening but earlier in the day, I spotted one of my young maple tree debarked by the bunnies looking. More spring wildflowers are opening like the bloodroots although the deer already ate some of the snow glories blossoms overnight. More birds are returning like the northern flicker. The pond is coming alive with the tadpoles swimming in the shallow waters as the female wood duck makes trips into the duck house. The water striders are skimming across the top of the water while dragonflies skip around in the air above. But it will be a while before spotting this red color dragonfly as it is an autumn one and I want spring and summer to last a while first.
Meadowhawk Dragonfly
