Is time travel real?

Apparently it is!

Can you believe all the spring stuff that has been popping, singing, blooming, and buzzing? It's like we've gone forward in time to mid April!

To tell you the truth, I've been putting off posting about wildflowers, because we're not open yet! But, now that we only have a week to go, I don't feel too bad. BUT, the list of in-bloom flowers is pretty big for March! If you compare to the first list from last year, I had to include several of the cultivated bulbs and such to round out the list. Not this year.

An update on our amphibians: The Spotted salamanders are done. You can find many egg masses in the frog ponds. The Wood frogs are way done, and their tadpoles are hatching. We also had for a few days, one of the Chorus frogs singing. There was just the one, but he was giving it his all. The Pickerel frogs are now singing their snore-y underwater song, and would you believe it? The toads are trilling! Did I mention that it's only March?

On to birds: Monday I saw a lone Pied-billed Grebe out on the pond. I witnessed what I thought was some interesting behaviour. The bird was quietly hanging out by himself not really doing much. Along comes the pair of Canada Geese honking and squawking and making a huge racket as they made their splash down. The two geese swim right over the the front yard (Tom has some cracked corn out) and start munching away. Meanwhile the Grebe almost immediately makes a beeline for the two geese. Once he got in close proximity (upon which I thought for sure the geese would drive him away), he started to dive and feed in the general area. It would be easy to anthropomorphise the situation and say that the Grebe was lonely. But, I wonder if he wasn't just taking advantage of the geese's ability to alert him to danger while he focused on feeding. Once the geese were finished snacking and swam to the other side of the pond, the Grebe resumed his previous solitary behavior.

Before I get to the list, I wanted to post a picture I took today. Three Black Vultures (my absolute favorite bird) flew out of the pines and into this tree near the board walk area.


Okay on to the list:

Confederate Violet
Speedwell (spp.)
Forsythia
Bloodroot
Serviceberry
Spring Beauty
Spicebush
Three-lobed Violet
Cut-leaved toothwort
Wild Geranium
Rue anemone
Yellow Violet
Blue Cohosh
Marsh Marigold
Marsh buttercup
Golden Ragwort
Dutchman's Breeches
Coltsfoot
Vinca

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