Spring equinox occurs on Saturday, March 20, at 5:37 AM. As Reverend Amanda described last Sunday, the equinox is when the length of day and night is nearly equal in all parts of the world.

It feels that spring this year is behind recent years. One way of gauging spring in our area is the forecast cherry blossom bloom time. On average it falls during the last week of March into the first week of April. This year, the Park Service is predicting peak bloom between April 2 and April 5, so on the late side.

Given that we are behind schedule and how dry it has been the last two weeks, I was worried that I wouldn’t get any interesting photos for this week. I was wrong. There is color everywhere if you look for it.

Last week I shared photos of individual crocus blooming. This week it is a crocus festival by the office entrance.

A white hellebore in the Memorial Garden.

A rose hellebore in the front of our building.

Daffodils in the upper parking lot.

Last week I shared a photo of Virginia bluebell leaves just poking out of the ground. If you look carefully you can see the blue buds formed on that same clump. All we need is some warm rain and we’ll have a great bluebell patch in the back.

Look up! If you see red flowers, it’s likely a red maple in bloom. Maples are both insect and wind pollinated, but mostly insect. The more attractive the flower, the more it relies on insects (or birds) for pollination.

A close-up of the Red maple flowers. Maple trees can have either female flowers, male flowers, or both. The female flowers are red.

I’m not sure if this is a male red maple flower (which are more yellow) or a silver maple.

Robins love our Conservation Area in the back. Right how there are probably four or five pairs turning up leaves looking for worms. They have learned to follow me around and they feed in an area when I’m done working there.

I hope you are able to get outside to discover the wonders of nature.

Joe