First

One of these years I'll start keeping a continuous record of the first time various things show up or happen that year (or season, in the case of things that return in the fall). Today, white-crowned sparrows showed up for the first time this year. Chipping sparrows have been back for a few days at least, and song sparrows for longer than that. I think there were ruby-crowned kinglets around yesterday. Trout lilies are about at their peak now and the white trilliums are in full bloom. (Did You Know: according to Uncle Wikipedia there are fifty "accepted" species of trilliums (a bunch of which are native to east Asia), and also this: "Trilliums are myrmecochorous, with ants as agents of seed dispersal. Ants are attracted to the elaiosomes on the seeds and collect them and transport them away from the parent plant. The seeds of Trillium camschatcense and T. tschonoskii, for example, are collected by the ants Aphaenogaster smythiesi and Myrmica ruginodis. Sometimes beetles interfere with the dispersal process by eating the elaiosomes off the seeds, making them less attractive to ants." Those words there that you don't know what they mean, I don't know what they mean either. Ordinarily I would follow the links and find out, but right now everything is happening at once, so I won't. Probably at some time in the future I will, but then I will forget what they mean again anyway, probably. (Bah, I lied: "myrmecochory" is seed dispersal by means of ant. "Elaiosomes" is "a term encompassing various external appendages or 'food bodies' rich in lipids, amino acid, or other nutrients that are attractive to ants": "Seed dispersal by ants is typically accomplished when foraging workers carry diaspores back to the ant colony after which the elaiosome is removed or fed directly to ant larvae. Once the elaiosome is consumed the seed is usually discarded in underground middens or ejected from the nest.") Coltsfoot is well past its peak and hepaticas are mostly done and gone. Bloodroot seems to be gone entirely. The swarming-but-not-biting blackfly-like flies (some of which, I learned last year, may be species of blackflies that don't feed on humans but investigate them to see if they're the kind of animals they do feed on) have been out for a few days. Going up to the cottage to put the water in tomorrow; I expect the bellworts will be out, but maybe not. Last I was there, on April 30, the lake was still mostly covered in ice, which answers the question whether the lake can still be ice-covered into May.

Currently at Havelock: 25.4. High today: 27.3.