Raccoon Creek (Week 2)

Virginia bluebells.

When it comes to wildflowers, you gotta visit them at least once a week or risk missing something. So I went back to Raccoon Creek State Park's Wildflower Reserve  on Friday this week. Right now, it's all about blue.

The first lovely thing to catch my eye was a blue azure butterfly. I saw several in the park, and this time I found one pausing with its wings halfway open. The underside of its wings are white with black spots, but the tops are a lovely sky blue. Blue cohosh is sprouting in abundance, its blue tinged stems and leaves reaching towards the sun. Hepatica continues to bloom in waves, and this time I found a few blue blossoms among the white. And tiny bluets have opened their eyes. Some blues are blue in name only, and the common blue violets now blooming from coast to coast are violet rather than blue. Virginia bluebells will be bluer when they open, but right now they are budding in vivid shades of pink. The park is especially lovely when the bluebells bloom, and I'm hoping for the first open flowers next week.

The wildflower reserve is very social distancing friendly during this pandemic. The parking lot is  spacious, but it's definitely too small to accommodate anything close to dangerous overcrowding on the park's many trails. The visitor center and bathrooms are closed, so avoiding use of benches and getting well out of the way of anyone wishing to pass you on the trail may be the only mandatory precautions. Just mind your step so you don't crush delicate plants if you have to step off trail. 

Spring azure butterfly. It was "puddling", which is when they sip mud from puddles on the ground in order to obtain minerals. 

Spring azure butterfly.

Spring beauty. They are in peak bloom right now.

Blue cohosh.

Waterleaf, named for the pattern on the new leaves that resembles drops of water.

A muddy area was full of animal prints. I believe these are the park's namesake animal, raccoon tracks with some squirrel tracks (?).

These were the right size to be squirrel prints.

Raccoon prints.

A large web-footed bird.

Raccoon prints.

Blue cohosh.

Dutchman's breeches.

Dutchman's breeches. 

Hepatica.

Blue cohosh.

Skunk cabbage. Nothing else is such a vivid green!

The triple leaves are a clear sign of a kind of trillium, and the mottled leaves are a giveaway that it's toadshade. 

Toadshade.

Dutchman's breeches.

Virginia bluebells.

Cutleaf toothwort.

Common blue violet.

Large-flowered trillium.

Wild geranium.

 Golden ragwort. It's easy to spot because of its vivid maroon stems and buds, but the flowers are a bright yellow.

Bee visiting a cutleaf toothwort.

Wild geranium.

Hepatica.

Hepatica.

Hepatica.

Hepatica.

Hepatica.

These certainly look like Dutchman's breeches in bud. But they are growing where
I know there is a patch of squirrel corn. So I will probably just have to wait and see.

Squirrel corn?

Bluets.

A flowering tree.

Tree blossoms. Wish I knew what kind.

Bloodroot.

Virginia bluebells.