Posted By crates on April 16, 2008

The woods are rapidly changing. I see this on my morning walks to the beach. The Salmonberry plants are blooming their pink blossoms. The Trilliums for at least three weeks have been blooming, sometimes occurring in drifts, but more often singly or in groups of two or three. I saw the yellow spathe of a Skunk Cabbage last week by “my” little stream. For some reason there aren’t more of them along the stream. It seems an ideal place for them.

The stinging nettles are growing rapidly beside the road, reminding me that I need to harvest some. They are absolutely delicious cooked, but of course must be picked very carefully. I brushed up against one the other day much to my regret. The trees are leaving out and if you haven’t seen a hillside of alder and Big leaf Maple as they begin to leaf out, mixed with the dark blackish-green of the conifers, then you have really missed something. The tiny, yellow green leaves look like the dots of color in an Impressionistic (Pointillistic) painting. I have never been able to capture this on film.

As the trees leaf out, it becomes harder to see the birds even though more and more species are calling. The Sound is relatively bare of birds. There are still the occasional Double Crested Cormorant, Pigeon Guillimot, and Red Neck Grebe (in it’s breeding colors finally!), but the numbers have gone dramatically down in the past three weeks.

Categories: nature
Tags: nature