Spring Ephemerals are Up!

Dutchman's Britches (Dicentra cucullaria) is one of my favorite spring flowers! The blooms look like tiny pantaloons (thus the name - which is also spelled Breeches).

This picture was taken April 9, 2010 at Wonder Lake Sedge Meadow - a TLC easement in, you guessed it, Wonder Lake! In addition to the sedge meadow on the 28 acre site, there is also an oak savanna in the upland buffer - that's where the Britches were growing!

This plant is one of the first native flowers to bloom each spring. Typically, we might expect to see them around April 24th, but this year everything is early! VERY early!

Bloodroot, another early Spring flower, has already come and gone in some local woodlands. Normally, it is still around in early May! The bluebells - which can almost always be counted on to brighten Mother's Day - are coming up already, and will probably have already passed by the time Mom's Day comes along a month from today (May 9th!).

Chorus frogs have been calling since late March, and the Spring Peepers (another species of frog) are already busy.

Bluebirds are nesting - I had one report of someone seeing a bluebird egg laid in one of their bluebird boxes on March 31st -- that's early! Very early!!

Even the bad guys like buckthorn and honeysuckle are going strong. In previous years, the earliest I noticed buckthorn in our local woods was April 12th. This year it was clearly greening up on April 1st (a really cruel April Fool's Joke!).

I'm having a hard time not thinking that this is another sign of Global Warming/Climate Change at work. The experts say that we will see more extremes in weather as the Global Warming process accelerates.

It's kind of a big deal when things start sprouting and blooming out of sync from their usual time of year. Insects pollinate flowers, but if the flower blooms before the insects emerge -- or if the insects come and go before their flowers bloom -- the flowers don't get pollinated. No pollination, no flowers in the future.

One oddball year here or there is okay, but if it becomes a trend, it could spell trouble!