Chickadees are beginning to sing their “hey sweetie” songs.

/in , /by
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The green frog tadpoles that overwintered in our pond are getting legs, mostly back legs at this point. Meanwhile, adult females are laying small eggs in big masses. It takes a year to make a green frog.
Starflower (Trientalis borealis) is a 4-inch high plant that doesn’t last very long and has small flowers, typically just one or two. The leaves are in a whorl, commonly of seven leaves and the small white flowers usually have seven petals. I don’t know of any other plants that grow in sevens, but maybe there are some. Another feature of starflower that is unusual is the flower stalks: at about an inch long, they are as slender as a fine thread. You can barely see them.
Our dog flushed a grouse off a nest containing just three eggs this morning. Grouse normally incubate 9 to 14 eggs but when, after shooing off the dog, I reached into the brush pile to straighten out the situation, the eggs were warm, suggesting that this female was calling it quits at three.
Ah, ticks. Tick repellent, pants stuffed into socks, tick checks, tick phobia. But staying indoors is not an option at this time of year.
It seems impolite to mention it, but it’s not inexpensive to keep our fleet of little birdfeeder birds fed.
A Year of Winter Finches Ahead
This weekend’s cool, May-like weather has been a blessing for those of us who are desperately trying to catch up on our wood.
Showy orchis is flowering.