One Beauty After Another

Another spectacularly beautiful day, summery warm in the early spring woods. Everywhere I looked, something wonderful caught my eye. I'd gone to the Hudson banks to look for Trailing Arbutus and sure enough, I found it.

Along the wooded path to the river, masses of Periwinkle carpet the forest floor with shiny green leaves and flowers of radiant blue.

With the forest canopy not yet closed in, the sunlight pours into the woods. These baby (Sugar?) maple leaves were lit from above so the light shone through and made the leaves glow like tiny Tiffany lamps.

The Mayapple shoots are still tightly furled, but the flower bud peeks out like a new-hatched bird from its cozy nest.

This little Red Maple tree was leaning over the river on Rippled Rocks Point, its rosy branches set off by the blue of the water.

This blueberry shrub is set to burst into bloom, with buds clustered tightly and colored like flames.

My next stop was Mud Pond at Moreau Lake State Park, where the sandy path to the water's edge is lined with Sweet Fern, now in flower. The brown catkins are staminate flowers, the little red tuft is the pistillate one.

As I stepped near the water's edge, the surface came alive with Whirligig Beetles spinning in circles.

One Whirligig Beetle stopped to rest on a lily pad.

Along the shore I found these really tiny Northern White Violets. I put my fingertips into the photo to show how very small they are. Fragrant, too.

On the sunlit banks of Mud Pond, the Shadblow trees are just starting to bloom, looking like drifts of cloud against the blue, blue sky.