The full moon disappeared this evening when an eclipse occurred. The bright moon became a reddish brown dull spot in the sky among the stars during the full total lunar eclipse. Tonight is also a super moon and also called the flower moon.
Super Flower Blood Moon
It is always interesting to see the variety of colors in the backyard, not just from the wildflowers, but the rainbow of birds. The red of the cardinals, the orange of the orioles, the yellow from the goldfinch and the blue of the indigo bunting all make a colorful splash at the feeders.
Male Indigo Bunting
When driving back from town today, I noticed large patches of trilliums blooming in the ditches. The Great White Trillium are a favorite snack of deer and with my population of deer, I only found three great white trilliums blooming in my woods this afternoon. And the blossoms are about a third of the normal size as the deer have grazed them too many times which prevents the plant the ability to store energy in the roots. And it may take 10 years before the plant blossoms the first time and the deer just eats my trilliums.
Not So Great
Last night storms caused damage from wind and the heavy amount of rain. All the runoff has stirred up my pond to a brown color and the ditches looked more like big waterfalls as the water washed out culverts and roads. And while the storm caused the rainfall to seem to be bad, Bad River in Northern Wisconsin has a series of nice waterfalls including Copper Falls.
Copper Falls
The hard rain earlier this week pounded the white petals off the bloodroots, but other flowers have opened overnight like the spring beauties, marsh marigolds, trout lilies and violets.
More Spring Color
It definitely has been a weird late spring and this year as the first butterfly I spotted was not the red admiral or the mourning cloak, but a monarch. Plus the bumble bees were out today, but they will not find this flower for several months yet so the few flowers that have opened will have lots of visitors.
Return of the Monarch
Yesterday a variety of birds returned for the season so the yard was filled with extra sounds and angry calls as they fought over the feeders. The house wrens, Baltimore orioles, orchard orioles, rose-breasted grosbeak and ruby-throated hummingbirds were among the new spring arrivals.
Return of the Oriole
I have a tradition of giving my mom three dandelion blossoms on Mother’s Day, but this year with the very late spring, I couldn’t find even one dandelion blooming. I did at least find a few buds so I picked them and put them under a lamp for hours trying to convince the dandelions to open. And by noon, I did have one fully open and two partially unfurled.
Mother’s Day Blossom
The last two warm days after the rain has the lawn greening up and other plants are starting to sprout, including these alien looking fern fronds that haven’t unfurled yet.
Furled Fern Fronds
The day was warm enough to finally open the windows for the first time this year. And the new calves liked the sunny day as they played, raced around and butted heads on the warm spring afternoon.
Springtime Calves
