Now Blooming, Now Flying

In Prospect Park this morning:Wild Geranium, a.k.a. Spotted Cranesbill (Geranium maculatum).Question Mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis), as punctual a name as the very, very similar Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma): (picture from my archives)– so named because of small silvery marks on their underside of their hindwings, unseen while wings are spread.Wild Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis).
Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta).
On Lookout Hill, I ran into Emily from the Prospect Park Alliance and we had a brief discussion of the importance of untidiness in the wild. Snags, tree stumps, rotting wood, thickets, brambles, bare patches of dirt, etc. Later, in the Vale, which is pretty much the park’s definition of untidy, I watched a bumblebee descend into this bit. She had big bundles of pollen on her legs. She’s clearly nesting in there.

Also saw my first of the year Green Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron, Chimney Swift, and House Wren. A pair of Wrens were joined by a trio of Blue Jays for a chorus of very strident alarm calls, as if something wicked was about (cat, raptor), but I saw nothing, and as the wrens started up long before I got anywhere near them, it wasn’t me, either. I found a Northern Flicker in her cavity nest; they do breed here, but not in great numbers.