Brilliant Green Leaves in early May

Leaves in the woods in early May, with the sun shining through them, are absolutely brilliant, a bright almost fluorescent green that I can't resist trying to capture in photos.

Sugar Maple

Elm

Dogwood

Trembling Aspen

Primrose Season in the Garden

Most of the garden plants are still spikes of green, emerging from last year's leaf mulch; in another month the hostas will have leafed out, and the day lilies will be almost started blooming. But for now the lowly primrose at the edge of the garden, and the pansies in the planter boxes add a bright flash of colour.

Primrose are only a few inches tall, but they come in a range of bright colours, often with two distinct colours in the bloom. They probably appeal because they are almost the only flower in bloom at this time of year.

The pansies in the planters are bright, but also frost hardy. They withstand the cold morning frosts, even the late April snowfall we had, and bloom happily as it warms up. This year they seem particularly rich with yellow, royal blue, and deep purple blooms.

Spring Flowers

Our Bruce Trail walk at Old Baldy last week netted a total of 27 species of spring wildflowers in bloom! Along with 9 ferns, 2 sedges, and 2 weeds. Among the best photos I got were these 3.

Squirrel Corn

Bellwort

Foamflower

Spring in the Woods!

It's the nicest two weeks in the year as far as I'm concerned. The world has turned mostly green, leaves are coming out, birds and singing, and wildflowers are in bloom. This is the single best month to spend time in the woods with your camera. I think I've taken 300 pictures in 2 weeks!

Led a Bruce Trail wildflower walk along the Mac Kirk Side Trail at Old Baldy last Friday, and the weather was spectacular. Trilliums were in bloom, and we counted 26 other species of spring wildflowers, along with 9 species of ferns.

Somehow the light in the woods is different before the leaves come entirely out. And light shining through leaves, or fern fronds, has to be just the nicest colour of green in the world.

Old Baldy is a good place for ferns as well as wildflowers; these are ostrich ferns unfurling from the unique fiddlehead shape to form a full frond, glowing green in the morning light.

Sandhill Cranes with Young!

Went on a Mother’s Day excursion to visit some gardens (Rural Rootz near Wiarton was really fascinating), and along the road northwest of Walter’s Falls, on the way to Owen Sound, we saw two sandhill cranes in a field. Stopped for pictures, and then realized there was a tiny young one with them! You can just see the brownish young bird in the grass between the adult birds.

At first, they were grazing, walking slowly away from us. I crossed the road to the fence, and the parents stood up and started bugling. We were far enough away they weren’t bothered much though, so we had a good look at them.

Rolling Dark Clouds of the Stormline

It was the usual afternoon last week, clouded but not stormy, and we were standing on the deck, when suddenly the dark clouds started rolling toward us. They came suddenly, with a burst of wind. Above our heads the clouds churned with boiling air currents, forming a dark line all the way across the sky, passing by quickly; the rain didn’t start til after they’d passed.

I went and looked at the radar, and it showed the longest stormline I’d ever seen, stretching all the way across southwest Ontario, from Sarnia to Orillia, and moving southeast steadily.

Mega-Moon

I think I'm slowly figuring out the new format for blogger, and I've been forced into using Google Chrome to access it, so I'm figuring that out too. This is my image of the mega-moon on the weekend, taken with a 200 mm lens, and using a tripod, but still not much to write home about. I guess you need a rather super camera to get a better close-up.