Aefintyr observations week of May 1st, 2022

Temps have been consistently above freezing at night. Loving the long days. Haven't looked at the sky much this winter. Noticed in the early night that the big dipper is almost on top of me and Orion is sinking into the horizon. 

Green is starting to appear most notably on the ground with the grasses and plants sprouting. A few shrubs have leaves. At the beginning of the week, the forest, from a distance still looks like fall and winter, mostly grey, brown and white. Towards the end of the week, specks of color appeared in the canopy.  On Tuesday 5/3 I found anemone, blood root and wild ginger first time for the season. Some of the blood root's petals had fallen off. I bumped one and the petals fell off... fragile apparently! The hepatica is amazing and all over. Many shades of purple and white. 

I continue to hear woodpeckers drumming and the barred owl hoot. Turkeys too. I hear a bunch of other birds just need to learn their calls so I can identify them. I found a white egg shell by the cabin a bit larger than a chicken egg. Thinking possibly a barred owl due to it's white color. I read that the outside of the Barred Owl eggs are rough, if I can find the shell again I will check out the texture. Could be something else's egg too. Some bugs are out.

On the trail camera I captured several deer and a turkey. On May 1st I was down working on mudding and taping the little cabin. It was sprinkling out. I saw a deer just up the hill from the bathhouse maybe 40 yards away. It did not seem to be bothered by me working and walking back and forth between buildings. It wandered for a bit nibling here and there. It eventually cross the wash and laid down on the hill side where it remained for an hour or 2. I have had this experience with deer in this area before. Where they would watch me and not run off. There was a doe with a fawn last year and they both were getting use to me. They approached me a few times last summer up on top of the bluff. In most other circumstances the deer run off when they see or smell me.

Noticed a few mushrooms on the ground and on wood. The birds is still around. Most of the "eggs" aka spore packets are gone. I checked for morels, nothing yet.