Bird Sanctuary - Saturday, April 15

 Bird Sanctuary – Saturday, April 15 

Pictures and words by Melissa Fey 






Towards the end of a beautiful Spring Day, I decided to make an excursion to the Bird Sanctuary. This small woods is on the south side of the County Line Road, just east of Highway 27. The parking lot is on the far east side of the property marked with a sign. This little gem is often overlooked for the larger portions of the preserve. My hike today was at the woods on the Original Bird Sanctuary. 



 

I took the left (east) side of the trail and was greeted by a group of Common Blue Violet. They lined the trail all through the woods.  

 

The north portion of the woods is new growth and does not have the diversity that the Old Growth woods at the back (south) end of the woods has. However, the quarter of a mile hike to the back of the woods is well worth the effort. This is where the wild flowers blanket the forest floor. 

Lots of deer tracks on the trail 

Trail on East side of Bird Sanctuary

Buckeye Tree that has leafed out 
Below is bloom on tree




There are Spring Beauty, Rue Anemone, Cut-leaf Toothwort, Trout Lily and Sessille Trillium or Toadshade blooming now. The green plants that litter the floor tell of more blooms to come.  


The woods here are so magical, you can almost imagine Fairies hiding behind the trees and snickering as you walk by.  


May Apples budding out

Smooth Yellow Violet
Viola pensyvanica




 

Purple Cress
Cardamine douglassii
The pink/purple flowers appear on long stalk with no leaves




Spring Beauty
Claytonia virginica
Five pink petals with distinct lines on petals (bees use them as flight paths to the nectar) 
The leaves are narrow and at the base of the stem



White Trout Lily (most Trout Lilys are yellow)
Erythronium albidum
Leaves appear in pairs - so named because of the mottling on the leaves that resembles the body of a trout fish





Sessile Trillium - Toadshade
Trillium sessile
The flower is the dark red center that will open up
Trillium was named because of the "three" leaves




Even the grasses are flowering






Rue Anemone
Anemonella thalictronides
Flowers have 9 petals. Two-Three flowers on slender stems above whorl of small three-lobed leavers




Delicate ferns unfurling their fiddle-heads cover the forest floor



A single Bloodroot plant.  The bloom comes up first and then the leave unfurls around it.
This plant has already bloomed and only the leave remains.



As you walk along the trail to the end of the woods you start to head west. The trail leaves the woods for a short bit, while you hike back north along the western end of the woods. The trail then enters back into the woods and you experience the tall White Pines that cover the western edge of the woods as it leads back to the parking lot. The complete loop is close to a mile long.  


Shagbark Hickory



Reentering the woods from the west side.



White Pine Trees
Identified by clusters of five needles
 



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