Journal for May 10, 2009

Spring has come in now with warm winds, and light rain. The leaves are expanding and getting visibly greener every day.

There still aren’t that many flowers blooming but there are pollinators competing for each one.

Downy Yellow Violet with bee

Viola pubescens

Wild Strawberry with bee

Fragaria sp.

Bellwort

Uvularia grandiflora

Prairie Smoke blooming in one of our planted prairies. The seed heads are much more showy than the flowers.

Geum triflorum

Wood Anemone

Anemone quinquefolia

Blue-eyed Grass

Sisyrinchium campestre

Hoary Puccoon

Lithospermum canescens

We don’t have much Wild Ginger but here’s one shady, cool spot where it grows along a ravine.

Asarum canadense

Serviceberry is in bloom in the woods

Amlanchier laevis

Prickly Ash flowers

Zanthoxylum americanum

Most of the ladybugs we see are Asian Lady Beetles – and most are in our house! But I did find one different one – a Seven Spotted Lady Beetle. It’s native to Europe, but it hasn’t been quite as successful in its new habitat as the Asian species, so there aren’t as many of them here. It was crawling on the ground in the woods, under some violet leaves. It has 3 whole spots on each wing, and one spot in the middle that’s half on each wing.

Coccinella septempunctata

The tent caterpillars have hatched, and have built small tents on many of our cherry trees.

I realized that I’ve been misidentifying one of the violets that grows in our prairie remnants. It turns out that it’s not Prairie Violet, it’s Early Blue Violet – a natural hybrid possibly between V. pedatifida and V. Sororia.