Journal for April 26, 2006

Spring is a wonderful time of year – I get so excited to see the flowers again that I try to take photos of all of them – so there are lots of pictures this week.

Serviceberries (Amelanchier laevis) have started blooming in the woods. They have delicate white flowers clustered at the ends of the branches, and their leaves are still small and bronze-green. Here’s a close-up of the flowers.

This is the way the tree looks in the woods.

Rue Anemone and Wood Anemones are blooming all over the floor of the woods.

Rue Anemones (Thalictrum thalictroides)

Rue Anemone close-up

Wood Anemone (Anemone quinquefolia)

I like seeing the curl of the fern fronds as they unroll.

The birds are busily building nests and laying eggs. Phoebes have renovated last year’s nest that’s next to the front door of the porch – they built up a new layer of moss and mud and laid 5 eggs. Now the top edge of the nest is only a couple inches from the roof of the porch.

Bluebirds have claimed one of the nest boxes near the house, and tree swallows have claimed another. There are periodic skirmishes when one of the bluebirds lands on the wrong box. The tree swallows haven’t started building a nest yet, but the bluebirds have a nest and 5 eggs.

This bluebird was watching for insects in 3 Finger Valley.

The spring butterflies were out and moving so fast in the warm weather that I couldn’t get any photos. I saw several Mourning Cloaks, Commas and Spring Azures, and one Tiger/Canadian Swallowtail.

Flowers on the remnant prairies were blooming. I found a few open flowers of Hoary Puccoon (Lithospermum canescens).

Birds Foot Violet, Yellow Violet, and Prairie Violet are all in bloom.

Yellow Violet (Viola pubescens)

Prairie Violet (Viola pedatifida)

Birds foot violet (Viola pedata)

Pussytoes are also blooming on the dry prairie hillsides. There used to be only two species of Pussytoes in Wisconsin, but now the taxonomists have divided them into four species so I’m not sure which species ours are. I think this one is Field Pussytoes (Antennaria neglecta).

Here’s a close-up of one of the flower heads.

I found my first tiger beetle (Cincindela sexguttata) of the year on Hidden Oaks Point – a place I haven’t seen tiger beetles before. This is a fairly common tiger beetle that I often see on the driveway later in the summer.

I’m feeling very hopeful about Buffalo Ridge Prairie – the prairie I planted in the winter of 2004/2005. I walked through it and found lots of prairie plants coming up. There’s lots of Monarda, some Yellow Coneflower, Prairie Cinquefoil, Black-eyed Susan, Giant Purple Hyssop, and plenty of clumps of prairie grass.

One evening I walked to our neighbor’s pond and sat there quietly as it got dark. It was fun to watch the day-time activities quiet down and the night-time ones begin. I’ve discovered that if I sit very quietly and watch, the animals seem to forget that I’m there.

I saw some big diving beetles come to the surface of the pond to catch insects that were skimming just above the surface of the water. There were no frogs calling but the water was filled with tiny tadpoles. Here is one of the diving beetles resting on a stalk of grass with tadpoles swimming all around.

A small flock of Hermit Thrushes flew to the edge of the pond for drinks and baths. They bathe very noisily.

There were some animals – I think birds – calling right by the edge of the pond, but I couldn’t figure out what they were. I never saw them, but they had a short piercing shriek that got louder and louder. I didn’t recognize the sound as any of the frog sounds I know, and I don’t know what kind of bird they might be. Next week I’ll take Mike’s recorder along and see if I can get a good recording. (I went back the next weekend and realized that the shrieks were from Spring Peepers. The first time there were only a few and they sound very different than a whole chorus.)

Just as it got dark two American Woodcocks flew to the edge of the pond. They searched for food by the edge of the water and bathed in shallow puddles near the edge. And several bats arrived to search for insects over the pond.

My entomologist friend Margot figured out that the odd buzzing beetle that I saw last week really was a beetle, not a bumble bee. It’s called a Bumble Flower Beetle (probably Euphoria inda).

Here are the two photos I took of it: