Apple blossoms

We had grown accustomed during the years living here that in mid- to late-May flycatchers would return from their winter southern migration to nest under one of the bridges in Bilberry Creek ravine, the bridge closest to our ravine entrance. It seems now that they will never return. It must have confused them last spring when they returned to their old nesting ground to discover how altered it had been. The old bridge had been taken away, a new one built.

Dogwood

 

 

Black cherry

This year again no sight of the flycatchers, so it seems obvious that they are unable to find adequately suitable nesting areas under these new bridges, not at all hospitable to their purpose, and that's quite sad, we feel. But spring is well entrenched now, we hear bluejays, cardinals, song sparrows and robins in the trees singing their spring songs of welcome.

Hawthorn

Flowering trees like Serviceberry have blossomed; apple trees are in the process and so are the wild black cherry trees. They've been followed by the hawthornes and the understory shrubs like honeysuckle and dogwood are in hot pursuit with their flower buds.

False Solomon's Seal

On the forest floor there's an amazing amount of spring flowering. Red baneberry has transitioned already from its floral stage to its berry appearance. False Solomon's Seal is beginning to flower and though they won't host any of their shyly hidden flowers yet, we've seen new colonies of wild ginger.

Wild Ginger

Trilliums and Trout lilies are in the decline now, and Jack-in-the-Pulpits in the ascendancy. And there is more, much more to come. Foamflower is blooming luxuriantly.

Foamflower

We've kept our eyes peeled for any random sightings of Blue-eyed grass, but no luck yet and likely that elusive, exquisite tiny flower will continue to baffle our expectations; we were fortune to sight it in previous years, and it just is not returning, it seems.

Red Baneberry