Wait, March 31st is Spring I thought...

The adventures keep adding up, and the story to tell keeps getting longer and longer. It seems like I get out and explore every day so if I don't write something it piles up. I think that this blog is either going to end up going 1 of 2 routes. Either I just continue summarizing highlights of my outings with some of my prettiest photos, or I decide to talk about one or two aspects of nature at a time, and focus more on passing on what I have learned about a particular part of an ecosystem...hmm we'll see. Maybe it doesn't matter.

Anyway, I feel like this transition from Winter to Spring has been the most drawn out tease ever. Everytime I think that we are taking a step into warmer Spring days, Winter grabs me by the ankle again and pulls me back. I think that it's time to get away for good! At least the Spring Peepers are calling outside my window now again...they got silenced for a few days there when the ponds froze over again and again. Tough year for amphibians!

Hmm well since I want to keep this as short as possible I think I will illustrate some of my Spring highlights from the past few days. Since I have been away, the sky has been painted on day after day with some of the most beautiful clouds. We have also had rain, sleet, and snow, but it has all been pretty. A few adventures to Mogadore Reservoir with my right hand man Brad Schultz produced some nice bird sightings and beautiful scenery. Highlights include a pair of eagles during an epic sunset as well as 250+ Ring-necked Ducks, along with other waterfowl. I "heard" an Osprey while in the woods almost a week ago at Mogadore, but haven't seen or heard since so I'm beginning to wonder if it was imaginary...I'm dreaming to hard for one of my favorite birds : )

Snowing again...(photos courtesy of Brad)

April 1st sunset

March 29th sunset

Oh yeah, one day I was at the wildlife property at KSU and Rob and I were watching the tree swallows hawking insects in the sun. Such a beautiful sight. Tree swallows definitely rank up there with some of my favorite birds. Well out of about 200 photos that were out of focus, I had about 4 that came out decent. Here's one...

Not only is it hard to follow these aerial acrobats through a 300mm lens, my lens also doesn't ever like to focus on the bird, just the water behind it...pretty annoying for $1500...I guess I will have to figure out a new strategy. I'm glad that I ended up with this photo at least though, and I am always happy just watching them up close : )

Jumping around in the week, I made it back out to the farm on Saturday, and hunting for the first wildflowers was on my agenda. An early morning hike produced a rowdy mixed flock of Grackles, Red-winged, and Rusty Blackbirds. Other usual birds were to be seen, but the wildflowers that I scoped out stillll weren't open...ALMOST though. I was with a group of friends, and after our morning walk, we made our way back to the cabin to cook the usual late breakfast feast. I won't tease you by explaining it in detail. Since it was a beautiful warm(er) day, I wanted to go back out and check the progress on some of the flowers, I imagined that the sun would have perked them up. I also wanted to look for possible emerging snakes and butterflies.

Guess what?! We found a couple open flowers!! Sharp-lobed Hepatica and Spring Beauty. Sprouting Bloodroot, Trout Lily, Blue Cohosh, and others aren't too far behind either! Here are a coulple photos.

Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica)

Sharp-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba)

Not only did we get a couple flowers, Brad managed to spot an Eastern Comma butterfly that he must have stirred up as he walked by!! I was expecting a Mourning Cloak if anything, but I was no less excited for the first butterfly of 2011!! Eastern Commas overwinter as an adult form by "hibernating" under logs, brush piles, or really anywhere they can. It's pretty amazing to me that these fragile creatures can endure Winter like that. Eastern Commas have a defense strategy to escape predation of blending into the forest. When landed, they close their wings and look like tree bark. They can easily go undetected. The open wings are beautifully patterned with oranges and black! Here are the two views...

We never managed to find a snake and it was time to go, but if we would have explored all day I bet we would have made our Mourning Cloak discovery!! Soon! Since Brad and I got back around Kent with time in the day, I said let's take the canoe out!! We went out on Mogadore. It was rough! The sun that had been with us all day gave way to sleet and strong winds blowing us backwards. We pushed through though and got a nice upper body workout in the process : )  The views of Bufflehead flying past from the closer proximity against the forest backdrop is always beautiful. It was a great ride and at the end of it all, we were rewarded with an epic sunset that decided to come out after all!

I think that this blog entry is a bit more scattered and jumbled than I would like, so I will refine it for future entries...I'm trying to figure out how to catch up. I can't wait to see what this coming week of Springtime fun has to offer (besides all the crap I have to do in school...)