Near Mt Greylock over the weekend: spring beauty everywhere! Also coltsfoot, red trillium (mostly down low), sessile bellwort (mostly still budding), some lily leaves I didn't recognize (similar to clintonia but more delicate, with reddish stems), jack-in-the-pulpit, elderberry, honeysuckle, lots of trout lily leaves but most not even budding yet.
Unknown:
Jack-in-the-Pulpit, maybe
Bluets:
One trout lily, apparently warmed by a large metal pipe, was not only blooming but crawling with beetles.
Can anybody ID the beetles?
Most hobblebush is barely leafing out, saw a few flowerbuds too.
Saw a small patch of sharp-lobed hepatica. Oh, and the maples are blooming so bright that some hillsides look a little like fall.
Low on the AT just south of North Adams, there's an infestation of barberry (also lots of rose brambles - possibly Multiflora). Needs intervention before it takes over completely.
Porcupine roosting high in a tree - that's a sign of spring since he's not in a hollow trunk
In addition to mourning cloaks, saw lots of Commas and a few whites.
Plus some large flies that I had to look up: they looked a lot like a miniature hummingbird moth. They were bee flies, Bombylius sp. I read that they not only visit the same flowers as bees, they parasitize bee burrows (they lay their eggs inside while the bee mother is out gathering pollen to stock the nest).
Less welcome insects were also swarming, especially in the afternoon, but hardly ever bit.
Ruffed grouse, turkey, vultures, hawks, blue jays, flickers, pileated and downy/hairy woodpeckers, a few hermit thrushes (one with what looked like a tick attached to his eyelid), a few eastern bluebirds.
Is that a tick?
Oh yeah, and my mom almost stepped on a garter or ribbon snake. (Was reminded while viewing MTruman's album. Is that a water snake in the fourth-to-last photo?)
I've been unlucky at finding bloodroot in the wild for a few years now, but the
Flower Bridge in Shelburne Falls has
double-petalled bloodroot at the eastern end, blooming now.
Pictures to follow.
