Resurrection

 Amazing!  Last week I could only find one specimen of the Mountain Lady's Slipper in my favorite place for viewing them.  I usually find a dozen or more around this time of year.  I was expecting out-of-town guests, botany students from S. F. State who were going to take along drive top see this and other orchids.  Well, either my vision improved or some magical combination of factors caused a dozen or more to bloom.  Not only were there a dozen or more blooming, with a few plants sporting two blossoms, but the Spotted Coral Root, the False Solomon's Seal, Red Larkspur, and many other species were blooming.  I'm considering today to be the first day of the resurrection of my blogging season.  I took 74 photos today so I'll be posting some of them, along with some natural history trivia, over the next few days.

 Out past Oakland Camp (north end) we went in search of species of Asclepias (milkweeds) and anything else that might have begun to bloom.  The Brodiaea above, hosting a butterfly, got me excited about the forthcoming insect season, a season most people anticipate in a negative light.

 In a notch along the stem of a Phacelia (waterleaf) is the foam of a Spittle Bug. The nymph of said bug is protected from dehydration until it metamorphoses into a flying adult for whom all that remains in life, as far as I know, is eating and mating.

Wow!  Three in a row featuring bugs.  The Salsify (AKA Goat's Beard or Oyster Plant) has a small fly visitor.  I am looking forward to early summer when this plant hosts wonderful colonies of aphids
being tended by a species of ant that feeds on their nectar.  To be continued tomorrow, and hopefully every day afterward for quite a while.  Thanks for a great morning, Morgan and Moe.