Spring is full of firsts. In fact, that's what inspires me to write this blog. It's a diary documenting WHENI discover new forms of life in the fantastic life cycle that includes early spring to late fall here at RedRock RV Park. Every day there's something new popping up or flying in, or hatching or well, you get the picture. Finding and photographing each of them is an interesting avocation each year for me.

Last night was our first thunderstorm of the season. Hail, thunder, rain and lightening. The temperature fell 10 degrees in about 30 minutes. It left the ground white again with pea size hail pellets for our morning walk. We decided to see what was developing in what I call Meadow #1. It's a couple small meadows along a trail rising on a hill about 1/2 mile from the RedRock RV Park (near Island Park, ID). Last year, I found many of our local wildflowers there first.




Reggie was wearing his new blue sweater knitted by Karen Rector, our good friend and purveyer of things knitted. She's staying at the RedRock RV Park too this summer with husband Steve. Reggie looked sharp wearing his new sweater in the early morning sun. We walked up the path to encounter again the early blooming yellow Glacier Lilies (Erythronium grandiflorum).


I noticed a slight difference in one of the yellow flowers and bent down to investigate. The odd one wasn't a lily, but the first example of the Yellow Bell wildflower (Fritillaria pudica). I found a couple more examples of it in the area with the plentiful morning sun. The glistening morning dew covering these flowers make them all the more beautiful in the morning sun.




The upper meadow on this trail was still covered with snow in most places. Content that I'd discovered all the new blooming plant life on this particular walk, we returned, hiking through the meadows between the road and the forest. A couple of the taller plants from last season still stood erect, shadows of their former self and now brown instead of yellow and green, having escaped being smashed by the weight of the deep snows. Like dried flowers in a scrapbook, this was natures own scrapbook.

While returning, I heard a strange flapping noise above me and looked up to see that it was being made by the wings of a large raven passing overhead. All I could hear was the flapping noise, as the raven was quiet otherwise (that's unusual!). The ravens hang out in the nearby forest and often are heard fighting or doing whatever ravens do when screaming at the top of their little lungs.

Next I heard the loud echos of the Sand Hill cranes as they took flight down the road. I watched them soar and pass above me with awe. They are very large birds with wing spans up to 6 feet, very noisy when startled and they pair up for life. They are also very pretty birds, migrating from several places far south of here, like the famous Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge near Socorro, New Mexico. They usually lay eggs in early May and hatch one brood of 1 to 3 colts (as the young birds are called) within about 30 days after laying the eggs. Hopefully, you'll hear more about these guys as the spring progresses, as a couple pairs hang out near here.



Again, no mammal sightings this morning, but a new flower and a couple new birds for the season have graced our presence and will remain for the season.