Yay! I've been watching the woods behind our house for growing things ever since the snow melted a few weeks ago. There's been a lot of eager waiting. Now all of a sudden -- in just the past few days, really -- little plants have started sprouting up all over the forest floor. And while I was wandering in the woods this afternoon I finally got to see my first wildflowers of the year!
These Bloodroot blooms are such a welcome sight, like brilliant beacons among the dead leaves:
Once I noticed one Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) plant in bloom, I started seeing these dainty little flowers everywhere:
I love the pale pink veining on these little flowers:
Some of the Spring Beauty flowers were much paler, and still very pretty:
It's so exciting to get to discover the plants that live on this wooded slope. Every new appearance is a surprise! I was happy to see these Mayapple plants pushing their way above ground:
Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) leaves are now scattered across many areas of the forest floor; these leaves are still some of my favorite spring sights:
This small patch of Ramps was an exciting discovery! I'll be sure to sample a couple of these onion-related plants in the next few weeks:
Big clumps of what I think are Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) have sprouted up seemingly overnight. I've never encountered these plants before, and I'm very curious to see them when all those blue flower buds open up:
Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata) plants are abundant in these woods, and they're on the brink of blossoming. I really like their jagged silhouettes:
Outside of the woods, a male Yellow-rumped Warbler (the first warbler I've seen this year!) was looking especially fancy among Red Maple blooms yesterday afternoon:
And not quite on the topic of flowers, but still related to the changing seasons, I was happy to meet a singing Brown Thrasher along our driveway:
I plan to check on these woods every few days; updates on the progress of our local flora will certainly appear here. Hooray for spring!
After nearly two weeks away, I was feeling some serious woods withdrawal when I made a trip back to Naugatuck State Forest yesterday morning. Ah, spring in the woods!
It was a little chilly when I arrived, and many of the wildflowers that I had been looking forward to seeing were still closed, but there were still plenty of blooms around. These tiny Dwarf Ginseng flowers made puffy umbrellas a couple of inches above the forest floor:
The Wild Strawberries were blossoming on a sunny bank:
And a little Jack-in-the-Pulpit flower was taking shape (before this plant and its neighbors had even unfurled their leaves):
These lovely little violets were growing in clumps in the marshy areas and along the path. I think I identified them as Small White Violets (Viola macloskeyi) when I found them here last year, but I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong! (Violets are tricky.)
The blooms on this small bush look an awful lot like Serviceberry (a.k.a. Juneberry, Shadbush, etc.), but I feel like I would've noticed if there were Serviceberries here (and munched on them) last summer. I love Serviceberries. Is this something else, instead, or could I have just missed the berries last year?
The Trout Lilies weren't quite ready to open their petals yet, but the closed flowers were quite pretty nonetheless:
And the Mayapples were sprouting up, building their own mini forest -- I think I see some buds on that one on the left!
Next to the Mayapples, a couple of Red Trilliums were nodding their green buds, not quite ready to open yet. I think these are some of the prettiest flowers ever (that color!), so I'll be eagerly watching for their arrival.
There was quite a bit of bird activity in the woods as well, especially on the lakes. A pair of Common Mergansers was vying for space with a pair of Mallards on the smaller lake, and I watched the Merganser drake chasing the Mallard drake. (I think it looks like the Mallard is sticking his tongue out at the Merganser in this picture. Boys!)
Once the Mallards had moved on, the Merganser pair sailed around for a bit, enjoying their territory:
But of course they flew off to another lake soon afterwards. (Why were you chasing the other ducks off, if you were just going to leave anyway?)
And I happened across something I haven't seen at these woods before -- a Canada Goose on her nest:
She's trying so hard not to be seen, with her neck all flattened down like that. And it worked pretty well, too -- I was standing there for several minutes before I noticed her at all. I wonder if there will be babies on this lake in a few weeks....
Happy spring!
I'm back! For a little while, anyway -- we're leaving again on Friday for an Exciting Adventure Oversees.... Look for potential blog posts about that later!
For now, though, I'm back to visiting my normal Connecticut haunts for a couple of days, and also playing around with the new camera I just got as a gift. (Thanks, Grandpa!) It's an SLR digital camera, and much more high-tech than the pocket-sized point-and-shoot variety I've been using for the past few years, which means that I've got some major learning to do! For example, I now have an actual zoom lens, so I don't have to take pictures through my binoculars anymore... what a crazy concept! I'm sticking with as many automatic settings as possible for now, and I'm having fun experimenting and getting the hang of the new machine. (And experimenting means varying picture quality, so bear with me during my learning phase.)
So I took the new camera out to the Naugatuck State Forest this morning to check on the plants and animals there. As I expected, everything has definitely changed in the 13 days since I was last there, not least in the flowers that are blooming.
The Pink Lady's Slippers are fully open and even starting to look a little worn. I only saw a few of these plants today, but I was very happy to find them.
The Mayapple blossoms are open and gorgeous, and I saw one plant that has already started to set fruit. Mayapple fruit is one of those wild foods that I've always wanted to try but never been able to -- when I was growing up in western New York, we had Mayapple plants everywhere, but the fruit always mysteriously disappeared before it ripened. From what I hear, though, it's sweet and delicious, so I'm going to watch these plants carefully as the season progresses and see if I can't finally get a taste.
These white-flowered plants were growing in a patch along one portion of the path, and when I bruised a leaf it smelled faintly like anise (i.e. licorice). My best guess is that this is Aniseroot (Osmorhiza longistylis), a native plant. It could also be Sweet Cicely, another anise-smelling plant introduced from Europe, but these flowers and leaves seem to match the descriptions for Aniseroot more closely, so I'll go with that.
This is Morrow's Honeysuckle, another invasive (non-native) species, and I'm deeply conflicted about it. I have such great nostalgia for this honeysuckle, since I spent my childhood pinching off its flower ends and sipping the nectar, which is delicious. But it's a "bad" plant, banned in Connecticut. Delicious... bad... gah, so confused!
There were a bunch of small animals out and about today as well, giving me a chance to practice with the camera some more.
The zoom lens was perfect for letting me get really "close" to this Bullfrog without startling it into the lake. (These guys are so awesome.)
Same with this American Painted Lady -- I love the detail of the shimmery scales on this creature's wings.
This cute little toad (either American or Fowler's, I'm not sure which) hopped across my path and showed me his (or her) bright yellow hand. I don't think I've ever noticed this feature on toads before, and it made a nice spot of color on the brown/gray forest floor.
I also saw a couple of really pretty damselflies, and even after a good bit of research I still have no idea what species they are:
As a side note, I was a crazy person today and decided to go to the woods at an insane hour in the morning, much earlier than I usually get up. Mostly, I wanted to test the idea that birdwatching is best done in the time just after sunrise. My conclusion: not really. I did hear a lot of birds, but not significantly more than I usually hear later in the morning or in the afternoon, and I didn't see very many at all. (Of course, that could have more to do with the whole leaves-on-the-trees thing.) So it was an interesting experiment, but since I've been tired all day today as a result, I don't think I'll be taking part in dawn woods excursions very often. :P
I'll try for another woods-walk tomorrow -- I need more practice with the camera before the next big trip!
