Barberry

Berberis thunbergii (Japanese barberry) is considered invasive in some parts of the northeast. Photographed yesterday, April 29, at the Skaneateles Conservation Area.

Blue Violets

Probably Viola sororia, common blue violet, photographed yesterday, April 29, at the Skaneateles Conservation Area.

Hobblebush

Viburnum lantanoides (Hobblebush) photographed yesterday, April 29, at the Skaneateles Conservation Area.

Prunus

I took the first 4 of these on Tuesday, April 26 (the day of the deluge) and the remainder today from the same bunch of trees. I think that these are pin cherries (Prunus pensylvanica, but there are several introduced Prunus species that look pretty similar to me at this point. Check out the white spider on the flower in the 6th picture.

Bald Eagle

I finally got a few barely recognizable pictures of the Gully Road bald eagle with our Cyber-shot this afternoon. I'll have to take a real camera over there one of these days.

Blue cohosh

Caulophyllum thalictroides (Blue Cohosh) taken at SCA April 21 & April 26. But it took until last night to figure out what they were.



Photographer's excuses: I use our little Sony Cyber-shot camera for most of the pictures that I take at the conservation area and many of those that I take in our yard at home. The main advantage is that I can just carry it in my pocket. But I can also put it close to the ground or high in the air without having to follow with my head to look through a viewfinder. However, depending on the light or camera position, I often can't even see the display screen and have to rely purely on the luck of the auto-focus. However, if I take enough pictures of a subject, I can usually get a few in which the subject is at least almost in focus. In this case (maybe a coincidence) none of my dozen or so Blue Cohosh pictures were correctly focused. Maybe the camera has trouble with the plant's odd color, focusing instead on the lighter colored blanket of tree leaves. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it, at least until I get a chance to try again.



[Update - Friday, April 29: I took 15 more pictures of Blue Cohosh today, and only a couple were anywhere near in-focus. The above image is one of those. I also took a lot of pictures of other subjects, and most of them are in relatively good focus. I can't help but still think that it's a problem that this camera has with this plant's color.]

Canis lutulentum

Yesterday's damp breeze

Karen took these pictures out of our upstairs window yesterday after the storm.


This is the storm as it loomed on the horizon -- without sound effects. Luckily we got back to the car just as the first raindrops began to fall.


I had just gotten done fixing the steam crossing near this location so that hikers wouldn't need to jump or take a giant step to keep their feet dry. I had cut down some buckthorns and put some fairly heavy logs along the edges of the stream to narrow it down a bit. Today there was no sign of my work, nor of most of my work from the previous spring. My new logs were nowhere in sight. Maybe yesterday's work actually made the damage worse. Anyway, I threw in a few logs today for a temporary fix. But I was gun-shy from yesterday about staying so far from the car with severe weather predicted, so I went back up the hill in preparation for a quick retreat.

Trillium Survivors

At least a few Trillium survived yesterday's storm and actually bloomed, though some were a little muddy.



Trillium grandiflorum (White Trillium)

Coltsfeet

Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) seems to like the shale down by the beaver dam and the road around the landfill. This is an introduced species, probably brought over by Europeans for use as cough medicine. It's considered invasive in some places. We'd probably think it looks pretty if it didn't look so much like a dandelion.

These were taken yesterday before the storm.

Hepatica

And also the Anemone acutiloba (Sharp-Lobed Hepatica).