The trilliums in the ravine are really beginning to emerge in numbers. Not all that many yet in flower, but they're on the verge of it. All of the trilliums are a dark red colour, though they're officially named as purple. On the rare occasion over the  years we've seen on a single occasion a trillium called a Striped Lady, a pink trillium with darker stripes; quite, quite distinctive. And last year I recalled seeing a pink trillium in a particular spot by the side of a trail, so this year I looked for it.

And there it was, a blush-pink trillium, head down, nodding at the soil. It was part of a troika, actually. A day later we saw that a second pink blossom had developed. A week earlier the first of the three growing together had bloomed sooner than the pink ones and it was crimson. So that was delightfully different.

Yesterday was clear and sunny and very hot, the temperature got up to 28 degrees. We wore shirtsleeves and we soon realized that something else was out and about, not only the Mourning Cloaks, bumblebees and little orange skippers. They don't bite, though the Mourning Cloaks do sometimes land directly on us briefly. 

We thought we might still be free of mosquitoes, but we were wrong. From May 15 to June 15 we know it isn't a very auspicious time to enter Gatineau Park just north of us, because of the persistent, annoying presence of blackflies. But we found in the last ten years or so that blackflies have decided to make their presence far more permanent there, so they can be found throughout the summer months. And they'll make their incursion into the ravine as well at some juncture this spring, though not in the same overwhelming, flesh-thirsty numbers.

The mosquitoes, though, they'll be around from now until freeze-up. Those that feasted on our bare flesh yesterday were the earliest to appear; they seem to come in waves and they're distinctively different in appearance; colour and size and habit. The larger ones come early and they're relatively clumsy, while the later swarms are smaller, faster and elusive; they bite and quickly move on, while the first wave sits there complacently on  your skin, allowing themselves to be crushed, so blood smears over you, rather unappealingly.

We were surprised to see what was to us an overnight phenomenon. Serviceberry trees were in bloom. Their tiny white flowers covered the trees, set back from the trail, behind other larger trees like poplars, but their bright presence was unmistakable. 

We had decided we'd do a little bush-whacking. We'd recalled when we had little option but to go off-trail while the newest bridges were being built last year and the year before, we had seen a colony of white trilliums. We thought we'd remembered where, and yesterday up we went scrambling uphill to discover where we'd see those trilliums that are so common elsewhere in Ontario, but not int he ravine. And find them we did, to our great delight, distinguishable from the others by the faintest sliver of white on the not-yet-opened floral buds.

The plan is to return, and to dig up a few, carefully and with proper reverence, for transplantation in our garden. The mosquitoes which will most certainly swarm me as I dig into the soil may have other ideas. Particularly since we've had fairly copious amounts of rain this morning. But we'll see....