Naturalist ADD In Spring

I signed on for a book project last December thinking that this is Minnesota and an early April deadline will be a great way for me to occupy my time. Then warm temperatures came early, leaves started bursting and survey work rolled in sooner than expected. Before I knew it, my body was chained to my book and computer and I could only glare enviously at friends posts on Facebook and Twitter as they were enjoying birds.

Sure, I had some of my field work, but trying not to throw up from the back of a float plane while counting eagle nests is not the same as a bird walk through the woods. Although, I did get a kick out of a great horned owl that took over one of my park's eagle nests--that's a ballsy move, but that's a great horned owl for you.

But finally, through a scheduling snafu, I ended up with two days off in a row and in the middle of all of that, we got word that our three new beehives would arrive. Time to relish spring and not just go through the motions of spring chores.

I was worried with all the warm weather that I might have missed my chance to see wildflowers but on bee installation day the surrounding woods was carpeted with rue anemone and I found myself in a quandary--what do I focus on for the day? Wildflowers? Birds? Bees? I tried my best to do all three. What a bonus to have a day off and get so much spring all at once.

Here's a transition of winter to spring. A pine siskin and a female goldfinch. One bird that came down to feed for the winter and the other gradually shifting into a bit brighter yellow plumage for the coming breeding season.

Up in the northern US we don't have the warbler extravaganza those south of us have going on but we do have the early ones like the yellow-rumped warblers.

But even as there are birds overhead, there are secretive and unique beauties down below. There's a patch of wild ginger near the hives and they hide there flowers below their two leaves.

What an amazing tiny flower, so hidden on the woods floor.

Our bees that survived the winter are thriving in the early spring. Bees with big fat pollen baskets strapped to their back legs returning. And the pollen is in several different colors. I think most are coming back with dandelion pollen but others are foraging on flowering fruit trees. One of the hives was so full, we went ahead an put on a honey super. Lilac are just starting and I'm kind of hoping we'll get honey that has a bit of that flower.  That happened a few years ago and I think it was my favorite.

We did our annual bee installation and put in three new hives, so combined with the three that survived the winter, we now have a total of six hives. As we were doing the installation, someone came by with a high speed camera and got footage of Neil dumping the bees into the hive. I love how the video almost makes Neil look like he's not moving while bees glitter all around him.  Here it is:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/40830178[/vimeo]

So all in all some great time off. And for my mom, here are a few more wildflower photos from around the hive:

Trout lily.

Trillium.

Dutchman's breeches.

Wildflowers Around The Beehives

I mentioned earlier that the wildflowers seemed to be going gangbusters this year around our bee yard--perhaps it's a matter of me exploring an area around our bee yard that I usually do not get around to visiting?  They are in an area outside of Mr. Neil's property--across the creek as it were.  Hans (the groundskeeper) has put up a bridge over the creek making it easier to access.  The ravines across the bridge are well used by the locals for horse trails and hunting (at least four deer stands).

I've gone over a few times in winter to look for owls but this is the first spring that I've done some serious exploring. There's been a pair of Cooper's hawks calling back and forth so I've crossed the bridge looking for them but have been distracted by wildflowers like the above wild ginger (there also a few white Dutchman's breeches in the lower left corner).  When I noticed the wildflowers on Saturday, I saw a TON of large-flowered trillium about to bloom and made a plan to come back the following Tuesday to see them in full bloom.

When I found the wild ginger on Saturday, I was excited that I was able to id on my own.  It's one of those flowers I've seen in the couple of wildflower books and thought, "Wow, that's an interesting flower."  It looks kind of like an orchid, it's purplish, and the flower hides beneath the leaves, low to the ground. When I came back, I wanted to bring someone with me to enjoy the show.  I was planning to come back on a Tuesday so that ruled out most of my friends--not everyone has the odd schedule I do.  I thought about Non Birding Bill (take a personal day from work) but then realized that bringing my man in the woods to look at tiny flowers was probably not the best thing.  But I did think that Lorraine has an odd schedule so I invited her along.  She hadn't been across the bridge very much either so I was excited to show her what was there (plus with her love of horse back riding, I figured she would be interested in the horse trails).

The trillium show was spectacular--it was as if we were in crazy trillium land.  Pretty much every thing that's white in the above photo is trillium (note the little blurry dots of white in the background).  It was just underway too, several more trillium buds still had not burst open yet.  The more I learn about trillium the more I like it and I marvel that it's managed to survive at all.  Picking it can kill the plant, deer love to browse on it so if you have too large a deer population, that can be detrimental to a trillium patch, it can sometimes take up to seven years for a plant to bloom and it needs ants to spread the plant--it's crazy.  I'm sure  a survival strategy that worked great before European settlement of our continent.  It's amazing to find such a huge patch of high maintenance flowers in the woods.

The spring beauties were winding down but a few pink ones could still be found.  Below are some others that I'm posting, more so I can have a record of the native wildflowers I have found (it helps me learn):

Another flower I was hoping to find in large droves was the yellow trout lily.  Their mottled leaves were carpeting patches of the forest floor.  We saw quite a few blooming but the leaves suggest thousands more are still to come.

I love this shot, doesn't it look like the flower is holding its arms out and yelling, "Ta Daaaaaaaaaaa!"  I was scanning some of the hills with my binoculars to make sure we weren't missing any flowers when I noticed a trout lily that was white--another species of trout lily--who knew.  I kind of hoped it was a dwarf trout lily, but that only grows in one spot in Minnesota and nowhere else so this is a regular white trout lily...still it added to our wildflower list.

Wood anenome was all over in huge bunches, highlighting  the forest floor.

This is wild phlox (with a tiny spring beauty in the center and an unopened trillium in the lower right corner).

This is one I had to look up and the noticeable leaves are very cool--it's called a sharp-lobed hepatica.

The bloodroot was almost finished blooming but a few were still going.

The Dutchman's breeches were also about finished blooming but a few patches could be found in the shadier areas.  We did note that we didn't see any of our honey bees on these flowers.  The one honey bee we saw was on a dandelion (non-native).  This is probably because honey bees are non-native and are not attracted to our native flowers.  They didn't evolve together and the native flowers grew to attract some of our native pollinators like bumblebees.

And I found one lone Jack in the Pulpit.  These were all over the place last year so I can't wait to see how predominate they will be here in the next few weeks.  So, after Lorraine and finished the walk on the other side of the bridge, I suggested we check around a different part of Mr. Neil's land and perhaps check out some of the nearby state land.  We found a few wildflowers but most of it looked like this:

Good old garlic mustard.  We've made attempts to rid this before after a blog reader pointed it out in one of my photos years ago.  As we walked we noticed creeping charlie, buckthorn and dandelions--all non-natives.  Lorraine wondered, why are there so many cool and different flowers across the creek and all we have over hear is garlic mustard.  After seeing the wonderland across the creek, we may have to take some active measures.  I've read that trout lily can be a good thing to plant to combat garlic mustard.  You can also purchase it from reputable nurseries.  Perhaps we will have to redouble our efforts towards the buckthorn and garlic mustard.  Anyone have any tips for dealing with garlic mustard (outside of a controlled burn)?

Random Trout Lily

I'm going to have to park myself at my beehives at some point next week.  So many native wildflowers are about to erupt.  Many are already blooming but there were several sprouting yesterday.  If it's sunny the first part of next week...the woods will be dominated by these delicate and brave first flowers of the spring like this trout-lily (so named because the spots on the leaves resemble the coloring of a trout.

Wildflowers To Pass The Time

This spring has been spectacular for wildflowers and the woods around the beehives are covered in them.  We've planted some natives and a two years ago, I bought some clearance large-flowered trillium to add in.  I was inspired to encourage more near Mr. Neil's house because you can find a few small patches of trillium (both nodding and large-flowered) in the surrounding woods and about ten miles away is a HUGE hill that is covered with them in the spring--I've never seen such a large patch in my life.  The person who owns the land also has a maple syrup farm so I think that patch is quite safe from development.  I was sad last summer that not one of the four clearance trillium I planted grew but yesterday I a nice surprise:

I found one shyly unfolding!  A second grew nearby--some of my trillium took after all! Now, I hope that they spread, it's a pretty cool and ingenious process (for a plant).

After the trillium matures they get this spongey bit called an elaiosome that holds the seeds.  The ants take it back to their nest and eat it, and the seeds are left and germinate.  So, if you see a large cluster of trilliums, you know there's a few ant nests there too.

Trillium aren't the only excitement for me in the woods--the Dutchmen's breeches are all over the place--I've never seen so many.  Gotta love a plant that looks like there are a bunch of tiny pantaloons hanging off the stem.

Wild Flowers And Blue-winged Warblers

Last fall, I went on a tear to get rid of some buckthorn and start replenishing the woods with bee and bird friendly plants (with mostly native plants) in Mr. Neil's woods. I've tried to make a sincere effort to learn my wildflowers and if I've learned anything, it's that if I find a flower very attractive, it's non-native.

I got some large-flowering trillium last fall and planted that on the slope where the big fallen oak has been hosting sparrows all winter. Alas, it does not appear to be popping up. As I was feeling sorry for myself and wondering what I could do differently, I noticed this, mere feet from where I planted the trillium:

Nodding trillium! Growing all on its own, without me planting it! Has it always been growing on this hill and since I'm always bird watching that I have just never noticed it? That's quite possible--really, the only wildflower I knew before this was Dutchman's breeches and Jack-In-The-Pulpit (which we have a ginormous amount of Jack's this year). Refreshed and excited, I decided to head into the woods to see what other flowers might be popping up and to try and get some warbler shots. I head to the spot where a major buckthorn removal had taken place and found:

A butt load of garlic mustard. One of the reasons I have never bothered to learn my plants is that I didn't want to know too much. Once you know what the invasive species are and how quickly they spread and how hard they are to get rid of--you begin to see it everywhere and feel a sort of powerlessness about it. This area floods every spring. So if we begin a garlic mustard removal plan, more will just be flooded in. As I was thinking in my head about what I'd read on the Internet regarding garlic mustard removal, I noticed higher up on a hill, a patch of flowers surrounded by garlic mustard...

It was a large patch of native wildflowers including large-flowered trillium and some rue anemone (and if I misidentify any flowers, please someone correct me, I'm still learning and need all the help I can get). I also found spring beauties, wild geranium, phlox, and something I cannot identify in my books and online:

Does anyone know what this is? I have a feeling it's non-native since I find them so pretty. Here's a shot so you can see the leaves:

So, even though there is still buckthorn and now oodles of garlic mustard, there is still some hope in the woods with some native flowers and our bees out there using them for nectar.

After I finished inspecting the wildflower situation, I headed towards the spot where we find giant puffballs because blue-winged warblers have nested there since I have been coming to Mr. Neil's. I heard one singing right away, found a spot with some open areas so I could aim my digiscoping equipment and waited. It wasn't long before a pair of blue-winged warblers were out and foraging. The birds seemed to have a circuit that they would follow from tree to tree, searching for tiny insects. By watching the circuit a few times, I got a sense of their route and could kind of follow along with the scope and digiscope some photos.

The blue-winged warblers were not bothered by my presence whatsoever and a few times foraged for insects about two feet above my head. Blue-wings are an interesting species. They hybridize with golden-winged warblers and may be contributing to the decline of the golden-wing. When blue-winged warblers move into the same range as the golden-wing--the pure golden-wings disappear to hybrids and eventually all become golden-wings. You can read more about it (and maybe even participate in a study) at Cornell's Golden-winged Warbler Atlas Project.

What a pleasant way to enjoy the evening sun with a blue-winged warbler. I even managed to get a video of the warbler singing his buzzy "bluuuuuuuuuuuuuue wing" song and foraging--enjoy!