Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Daily Pics 2020, #71.
Happy Wednesday everyone! I hope you are all having a good day. Here we are at mid week already and getting closer and closer to spring all the time. Spring is an exciting time. The birds return from their southern wintering grounds bringing with them bright colors and such an amazing chorus of songs to join in with those birds that have remained here through the long winter. The days are getting longer and the heat from the sun is getting stronger all the time. Once the snow melts it doesn’t take long for the green shoots of grass and other plants to show up. Then the pale greens of new leaves popping out and soon changing to the darker shades as they mature on the trees. Then the first flowers begin to appear, usually dandelions, violas, snowdrops and other early flowers. Getting close indeed.
Today we share some of the earlier birds to return in the spring, though they haven’t arrived yet…
One of the first birds to arrive in spring is the cute and friendly little “junco”. They often hop around my feet while I am sitting on the deck. I am waiting for these little birds to come back again.
Then there is one of my favorite singing birds, the “song sparrow”. This is a medium sized sparrow and usually one of the first to show up in spring. Not very colorful, but they make up for it with their beautiful song.
Then we have the “Harris’ sparrow”, another of our large sparrows and one of the most unusually colored sparrows. This one actually isn’t too early, but I thought I would toss it in here anyway, even though I used him not too long ago.
Oh well, there we have some of our spring birds and tomorrow we will have some that are a bit more colorful. I hope you enjoyed these pics anyway, have a great day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
© 2020 Steve McLeod.
Nature’s Art, #29.
Hello everyone! How are you all doing today? I hope everyone is feeling well and having a good day. It is a beautiful, sunny day here, but still cold. Winter continues to hold on but even so the snow does melt some days. The hillside across the street is snow free now, just nice ground showing all covered with leaves. We have been enjoying a super moon here and it was full last night, though I couldn’t tell any difference from Sunday night. This one goes by different names, in Europe often called the Lenten moon. Over here the name I like best is Crow moon. This is typically when the crows return from the south and sure enough many crows did return last Saturday. However, we do have a lot of crows that stay the winter now, making it harder all the time to tell when the spring crows actually return. Oh well.
Anyway, let’s continue our look at last year’s mushrooms as art in nature…
Here we have a common mushroom called a “resinous polypore”. They normally grow near the base of dead, decaying trees. Very soft and fleshy when young, gets harder as it ages. Not the best for eating.
This one is called “dye polypore” and is a real pathogen for older coniferous trees, especially white pine. It grows often on the trunk of the tree near the ground causing it to rot. I would suggest it would be best not to eat it.
Well, there is our art in nature for today, I hope you have enjoyed another look at some of our wild mushrooms. Have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
© 2020 Steve McLeod.
