Another bouquet
A selection from the many flowers I’ve been seeing:
Pink cuckoo flower
Dandelion
Double bloodroot
Red trillum (Wakerobin)
Dutchmen’s breeches
These are from a week or so back. The Pink cuckoo flower is in the mustard family, I think Cardamine pratensis. Dandelions are such a brilliant yellow.
This week I got out butterflying, and saw more Spring Azure than I wanted to count, Eastern Pine Elfin, and Eastern Comma, among others. All uncooperative for the photographer, but a wonder to see.
Nature Diary 
Happy spring!
🙂 Spring is wonderful. Would you believe snow is predicted for tomorrow morning? Just a half inch, but still…
So precious ! 🌞
Beautiful & colorful images Tom!
Thanks, Reed!
A bouquet indeed. We had a light frost this morning, but we’re accustomed to late freezes and late snows here in Colorado. When it warmed by late morning, talk about butterfly central – a lot of Painted Ladies and others.
May snow is a real event here in Mass – April snow is as well. No sign of Ladies (Painted or American) here yet, they’ll be flying here soon.
I am pretty sure the normal mode for most butterflies is “uncooperative.” 🙂 Unless you happen to find them early in the morning too cold to move. Looks like you are having some great blooms in your area – nice!
Thanks, Mark. Yes, butterflies tend to be uncooperative, Spring Azure are particularly flighty and only usually land for a second or two. But every once and a while, I run into a species or individual that will sit still, or even allow me to set up a tripod. 🙂
Just now, if I were offered a choice between chiggers and snow, I’d take the snow in a minute. It’s not just flowers that are making their spring appearance around here!
The red trillium is gorgeous, but I like the abstract view of the dandelion, too. I wondered if the cuckoo flower was related to the cuckoo bird, and it seems that it is: at least, in England. Several sites suggested it received its name because it appears about the time the cuckoo starts to sing, and I found this lovely bit of 15th/16th century verse from Kenneth Jackson’s Early Celtic Nature Poetry:
“Tender cress and cuckoo-flower:
And curly-haired, fair-headed maids,
Sweet was the sound of their singing.”
My father told me stories of chiggers, but I’ve never encountered one. I’m on the watch for deer ticks and wood ticks, I attract hem like a magnet.
I wondered about the cuckoo name – thanks for the story and the poem. Cuckoo flower is a kind of cress, a mustard flower.
I saw what looked like a silver spotted skipper zoom by, but that was absurd this early in the year. Otherwise pretty much just a few cabbage whites. I envy you your rich pickings! 🙂