I didn’t leave early enough yesterday morning to get to the Park before dawn and listen for owls, so by the time I was on the trail, the rare cloudless sky was already brightening. Soon the slanting first rays of sunshine lit up the newly-emerging leaves of shrubs.
Along the trail, the delicate leaves of the Pacific Bleeding Heart (Dicentra formosa) were just erupting from their shallow rhizomes beneath last autumn’s litter of leaves. The perennial clumps of the Fragrant Fringecup (Tellima grandiflora) and rosettes of the Large Leaved Avens (Geum macrophyllum) were fast coming on, having tolerated last winter’s brief spells of freezing temperatures.
The drooping white flowers of the Osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis) were still in bloom, and the first red-pink flowers and green leaves of Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) were just beginning to appear. The Snowberry (Symphoricarpos alba) was also beginning to leaf out.
I only heard one woodpecker drumming, probably a Downy, but the work of the Pileated and Hairy was evident on all of the dead Red Alder snags.
As the woods fill up with leaves and the weather turns drier, the peak season of the mosses and lichens will end, but for now they are still thriving in the understory.
