Finally, Sun! And flowers.

After over a week of relentless rain rain rain (and chill) we finally have some sun, and it looks like it's here to stay for a while.  

In the world of trees... some tiny leafies are starting to peak out -- especially on crabapples (pictured here) and lilacs.  

Also, red maples are flowering so brightly red, they're earning their name this week!

And some early magnolias have started flowering, but mostly they're just quite swollen.

In the prairie, not much happens this early, but prairie smoke is in that "almost" stage:

In the world of bulbs, quite a few daffodils are blooming, but most are still not there yet.

I also noticed some early hyacinths flowering. Oh, and periwinkles, which are not bulbs but we'll group them here as cultivated non-native flowers.

This violet photo is actually from last week -- on 3/31 I noticed them flowering, but I was too lazy to do a post for just that.


Many, many interesting ducks migrating through this time of year.  I don't carry binoculars or a bird book or a good working memory of duck ID, so... you'll just have to trust me that they're interesting.

Bird Day

Yesterday was a crazy bird day... First this red tail let me get about 10 feet from me before swooping down and flying to a nearby tree.  Diving ducks on the lake, but they all look like non-descript dots... I can ID buffleheads and mergansers, both of which I've seen in the past few weeks but neither of which there are... The most amazing bird happening was the tree swallows... Today and yesterday there were tons of them, swooping and diving all over the lake, skimming the water, grabbing... Something.  Very cool (but no photos at all of small fast-moving birds).

Almost pasqueflower... Almost prairie smoke, too...

Blooms

Celandine poppies

Prairie smoke

Center of ice stick tulips 

Almost pasqueflower 

Hepatica

Spring Has Sprung

Illinois is the Prairie State, but if you're lucky enough to have access to a wooded area, this is the perfect week to explore it.  Spring ephemerals are in their prime, and, as their name implies, their beauty is short-lived....

Hepatica

Hepatica is in full bloom right now.  I love this wildflower especially, not just because it's an early treat, but because they come in so many colors -- white and pink and purple and blue -- sometimes all right next to each other.  Bloodroot is also in full bloom in the woodlands, its large white flowers standing out against the brown of last year's leaves and green of emerging leaves.   It's leaves -- themselves an interesting shape -- are still curled around the stems; the stems show the red liquid inside that gives the plants their name. 

Bloodroot

Just starting to bloom are trout lilies -- their splotchy, trout-skin leaves are all over -- spring beauties, and anenomes.  

May apples and trilliums have not yet flowered, but their unique foliage is popping up.  

If you only have access to prairies, there are some early flowers there, too.  Pasqueflower is in full bloom right now, with its purple flowers and fuzzy stems.  This is always one to which I look forward; Leopold's quotations makes it seem significant to me.  I know I quote him each year at this time, but I'll still remind you of this passage from ASCA: "For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech."

Prairie Smoke is also starting to bloom!

Also... the first tick of the season was seen a week and a half ago, but they're out in full force now.  I pulled several off kids today.

Spring Beauty

trout lily

Pasqueflower

Anenome

D-Day!

I have been waiting for this day for months!  As I ran through the newly flooded back loop of Rollins Savannah... clad, I might add, in shorts and a tank top... a dragonfly swooped past my head.  YEA!  It wasn't the only thing that the strong wind carried my way... the cloyingly sweet perfume of blooming magnolias.  The aroma of outdoor grilling.  When the mercury first tops 80, everything comes out to play.

Also seen:  trout lilies blooming.  Baby geese (on 4/28).  Pasqueflower blooming.  First prairie smoke blooming.  Dandelions in full bloom.

Ephemerals

Ephemeral. Fleeting. Our spring weather has been ephemeral this. Thursday, after snow and rain, we had a lovely spring day... to be followed by a cold and wet Friday. Today was, again, lovely, but by Monday we're supposed to be back to three days of chilly rain.

Today we walked at the gardens. The spring ephemerals were in full bloom. (Being 20 miles south, they are a couple of days ahead of us. Being professional horticulturists, they are probably another couple of days ahead of us.) As proof of point, I can't even get Dutchman's breeches (sketched above) to grow at my house. There it grows in huge clumps of feathery leaves.

Their bloodroot was actually on it's way out...

Trout lily.

Anenome.

Spring beauty.

Trillium.

Bluebells, just starting to bloom.

Marsh marigold.

This magnolia is from the exact tree I sketched last year on April 1 last year. It is, perhaps, a little further along in its lifecycle. But not much.

Prairie smoke. (OK, those last aren't ephemerals, but whatever.)

Baby Pictures and Other Updates

Spring marches on, and here are some of the floats at the parade today...

Some buds are starting to do more than just swell, they're turning green and scales are splitting. Above, serviceberry (left) and lilac.

Some plants are popping up green shoots, like the rattlesnake master babies shown on the left. And early flower-ers are getting ready. Shown here, prairie smoke buds (photo taken on 4/3) show their pink color. Pasqueflower buds are brown and fuzzy and I'm keeping an eye upon them.

It is a good time for hazels of all sorts. Here is an American hazel twig with its catkins (male flowers) swollen and enlarged, almost blooming. Two tiny female flowers are also visible in the background. Meanwhile, witch hazel is in full bloom, and the bushes are surrounded by a cloud of perfume... a sticky sweet scent that almost makes me dizzy. Sigh... the internet is good, but there are some things you still have to experience in person...

I found this egg shell today which we believe to be a mourning dove egg based on size, color, and timing. It wasn't especially near a nest of any sort (that I could find).
And finally... our first daffodils! These are extremely precocious, as it were... most are about 6 inches tall with no hint of flowers opening yet. Some are significantly shorter depending on sun/soil conditions. These blooming ones are right next to a building, which perhaps provides them with heat? (My uncle, 30 miles south, within an urban heat bubble, and steps from the shore of Lake Michigan, reported seeing daffodils over the weekend. My dad, in England... so thousands of miles to the east, quite a bit north, and under the influence of some ocean currents that obviously don't bless us here... sent pictures of daffodils over a month ago!)

Trip Journal: Leopold Shack and ICF

Just fifteen miles, but seemingly a world away from Devil's Lake, is the shack where Aldo Leopold was inspired to write part 1 of A Sand County Almanac... a book which is a phenologist's bible. Just down the road from that is the International Crane Foundation, where every species of crane in the world is viewable. Some notes from those places:
Now the grass has blue eyes.
Prairie Smoke seeds.
A small mustard that grew everywhere at the shack, from the woods to the shores of the river.
Pearl crescents on the river's edge.
This is my special treat every year. The hoary puccoon blooms when we go to the shack each May. I love its color so much -- an orangey yellow, a pure and deep and bright color.

Lupine Study.

Also, I saw/heard some great birds on this trip. No photos, but... among tons of either common or unidentifiable-to-me birds, I noted:

Baltimore oriole.

Scarlet tanager.

Pileated woodpecker (heard).

Sandhill crane.

Turkey vultures from above them.

Herons with babies. (A lot of noisy herons with a lot of noisy babies, not too far from my tent.)

More From Today.

OK... first thing's first. Today is ICE OFF day! This morning there was still a largish mass floating, but strong winds broke it up. There are some ice-cube sized chunks that have floated over to the edge, and were making a clinking sound as they were pushed together in the wavelets. It sounded like nature was throwing a cocktail party to celebrate spring! (You know, before it snows again.)

The sexually precocious American Hazels have begun to display their bright pink female flowers. (Many shrubs have none yet, but several have branches adorned with these almost impossibly small but beautifully colored flowers.) Alders are also girl-flowering (in addition to the male flowers noted earlier) now, but I didn't get a picture of them.

I have discovered, by the way, that if I carry a white index card with me, I can slip it behind small subjects and it makes it a lot easier to get the auto-focus to focus on the proper thing. I recognize that the sacrifice here is the artfulness of the photos, but sometimes, the goal is scientific documentation. Especially when I have 20+ kids waiting for me and not understanding why I am stopping to take a picture of something random like a bud when they are studying something totally different like birds, for example. So the boring backgrounds aren't necessarily my first choice, but they serve their function.

Many buds are swelling up and showing peeks of green between their scales. Not that many species, but enough that it's starting to be exciting out there...

shown above, Linden, serviceberry, and weeping willow (with catkins showing).

And more from the baby plant front, here are prairie smoke flower buds (left) and baby bergamots, in the shadow of Naomi (right).