I was out in the woods 4 days this week, 5/3, 5/4, 5/7 and 5/8. It was very dry, we had one day with some rain but fire bans and warnings continue in much of the state. Little rain in the forcast.
Flowers
- Large flowered Bellwort - been active for a few weeks
- Rue Anemone- blooming for over a month
- Wild Ginger
- Jack in the Pulpit
- Round lobed Hepatica - flowers have turned into seeds. I read about how to collect the seeds. Apparently they are to be collected and planted when they are green and then will surface the following spring. I decided to try collecting a few seeds. I found 3 plants with seeds forming and placed a small mesh bag around the flower/seed heads. I will check the bags in the coming weeks for dropped seeds.
Trees
Leaves are still appearing as little colored dots when looking at the woods as a whole. When you look close up, many buds have opened and the leaf details are becoming obvious on many trees. The oak leaves particularly caught my eye because of their red color. According to an article by Michael Snyder, a forester, hardwood leaves typically have some red when they are just beginning to grow due to a lack of chlorophyll. As temperature and light conditions allow the leaves produce chlorophyll and turn green. Ironwood, elm, basswood and box elder leaves are also coming out.
Fungi
I spotted my first morels of the season on Friday 5/7/2021.
Animals
I continue to hear additional bird songs. I captured more turkeys and deer on the trail camera for this week. I had a buck walk to within about 20 yards of me while I was morel hunting on Friday. When he saw me he ran stopped at a distance that I could still see him and snorted a warning of my presence. I saw several turkeys in the corn field one evening. I also found some broken eggs shells, which I believe were turkey eggs, it looked like a creature made a snack of them.
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