What is as rare as a day in May? #phenology

This morning a solitary hen turkey decided the top of the slope on the far side of the back yard was a good place for a dust bath. We watched in some amusement and will upload some photos tomorrow. Meanwhile, multitudes, or so it seems, of songbirds and woodpeckers are descending on the feeders, plus the ruby-throated hummingbird returned to the sugar water feeder on  a front window.

bullsnake sunning on gravel road

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday afternoon, while picking up roadside trash, we noticed a large, quite dead, bullsnake (Pituophis catenifer sayi), a subspecies of Gopher snake, lying in the ditch. We suspect it was warming itself on the blacktop and someone, intentionally or otherwise, ran over it. Since these snakes are a species of Special Concern in Minnesota, we wish drivers would be more careful, although it's also likely, and unfortunate, that no one in the vehicle was any more aware of the snake's status than of the snake itself.

prairie smoke flowers

Photo by J. Harrington

As we reviewed photos taken in prior months of May, we noticed that the local patch of prairie smoke has emerged earlier in the month than we recalled. Full flowering probable won't happen until late May or early June, but we can start looking for emergent flowers sometime this week. One of the nice aspects of this month  is  that looking for and finding wildflowers in bloom is relatively easy to accomplish while physical distancing, since, over the years, we've collected a number of our-of-the-way spots that are rarely crowded.

May Day

Sara Teasdale - 1884-1933

A delicate fabric of bird song
  Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
  Is everywhere.

Red small leaves of the maple
  Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
  The pear trees stand.

Oh I must pass nothing by
  Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
  The grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure
  I shall see again
The world on the first of May
  Shining after the rain?

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