A lovely spring evening to be outside a bit.

The flowering trees that encircle the Hepburn/Carnegie circle are starting to bloom! Soon all of them will be attracting both people and insects! Also, the pine trees have the cutest baby pine cones this time of year! And better yet, the vines have their leaves out on Sykes!!! And lastly, there was a silly looking tree with buds all over it's trunk. We may have skipped spring weather but now we have some spring plant life!

Can you find the snake in this picture? I almost stepped in him as he was sunning in the middle of a trail. I believe it is a garter snake

Beautiful spring morning; saw this beaver looking at his reflection and the trees reflected as well. The flower is a recurved trillium (Trilium recurvatum).

Beautiful spring day. A pair of loons taking off from the pond.

On Saturday April 27th Nature Up North led a hike out at Wolf Lake State forest. We had a small group but it was a great hike. The day was overcast but warm and we found out quickly that the black flies have made their spring return to the North Country! We made our first stop at an amazing beaver dam about 1.5 miles into the hike where we paused to have a quick lunch (in between swatting black flies). We heard a pileated woodpecker and northern flicker while we were stopped, and saw a heron.

There is a beautiful patch of bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) plants growing on the Kip Tract. It was overcast and a bit chilly when I took this photo at about 7 am, so the flower is not open, though I suspect as the day warmed that the flowers opened. Also saw an open red trillium near by.

Three spring wildflowers in bloom at my camp today: Spring beauty (Claytonia virginica), Liverleaf (Hepatica acutiloba) and (not pictured), trout lily. Lovely!

More time in with the winged creatures at the refuge center by my wife, Deb, and I. Pictures of an arctic fox, kestrel, bald eagle, young great horned owl & merlin are in this set.