May update #2 - From Colorado

Since my last post, the weather has been a roller coaster ride.  It can be snowing in the morning, the snow melting and sky clearing up by mid-day, but then back to snowing in the afternoon.

Anyways, while it is snowing really hard outside right now, I have entered the data I collected yesterday, sorted my photos taken the past few days, and then decided to write this post.

May 9th

My labmate was examining cocoons and saw these spirally frass inside a cocoon.  Based on the orange colour, we suspect it is one of the composite-specialist bees - either Osmia montana or O. coloradensis.

Flowering plants of Gunnison National Forest, Colorado

Even though my summer field season has finished, I still have three blog posts about Colorado in draft mode that I want to share.  Here is one about most of the flowering plants that I photographed during the summer (and then I will post photos of insects and birds).  I have arranged these images mostly by the time I saw the plants (i.e., phenology) and/or genus.

One of the earliest flowering plant that I saw.  I couldn't identify it at the spot, but it is in the Parsley family (Apiaceae).

Lady Eaton Drumlin in the Spring

The weather was so nice (and warm) today that I decided to check out Lady Eaton Drumlin before I went to my office.  It was during mid-day so the highlights of some of these photos are quite bright.  One thing I didn't prepare for was the mosquitoes and so they annoyed me quite a bit today.  This is my first being on the drumlin during the month of May.  I was here last year in April and the trees were still leafless and only hepatica was flowering, but that was not the case in May.

Star-flowered Solomon's Seal (Maianthemum stellatum)

International Migratory Bird Day

Today (May 5) is International Migratory Bird Day (IMBD), and one of the nearby events takes place in Alderville where I helped out with the managed burn last week.

Back at Alderville.  I wish I took a better photo of the burn last week, so that I can compare it with this photo.  But from afar, I think the burned ground is green now.