Well, you all should be officially coming out of the mud season (we have had nearly 5 inches of rain here in the last week . If you have too, maybe not.
Anybody have any success with spring flower photos, or locations? It should soon be time for those wild orchids to start popping out. We have had White Trillium, Red Trillium, yellow and pink lady's slippers here consistently between the middle and end of May. So it is coming. Would love to here some success stories here.
The Red Trilliums are out up here as well as the Trout Lillies. A lot of Aneminies and what I call May Flowers at the Dead Creek Refuge. I haven't spotted any Painted Trilliums yet. It's a bit early for them. They are located mostly in the northern highlands of VT. My favorite place to photograph them is the 4 Mile Road near Lewis Pond and around the Pond itself. There are also some Ladys Slippers on the 4 Mile Rd. at about the same time. The Showy Ladys Slippers won't be out on the Dog Pond Road in Woodbury until mid-June. There are a couple of Osspreys hanging around Dead Creek and a couple more nesting on Otter Creek near where Dead Creek meets it on the Basin Harbor Road in Ferrisburg. I may head back there this week and see what kind of photos I can take.
The day before yesterday I went wandering around the Woodbury area to see what wildflowers were out.( But first I had to go to the Wayside Restuarant for their beans and franks lunch and to Morse farm for my first maple creamee in 3 weeks.) I found the usual red trilliums and trout lilys. What surprised me was the Dutchman's Britches on the West Woodbury Road. There were 4 small bunches blooming and a lot more bunches that should be blooming next weekend. I also found 3 painted trilliums on the Green River Reservoir Road in Hyde Park. Yesterday my brother and I went to West Haven to check things out. First we went to the ledges on the Gallick Road to see if the vultures were home. They weren't. But the ledges were full of Red Columbine. Took a lot of photos of them and a few critters. Then we took the Bay Road from the Gallick Road north to the Ghost Hollow Road. The road was as dry as I've ever sent it but the "mud boggers" have torn up the road at the lower end. Ground clearance and/or careful driving is needed. The white trillium were all over the place, especially on the River Road, where the banks were loaded with them. Some of the best areas were posted so a good zoom lense is needed. This is the first time I've used my Rebel camera on these pure white beauties and it was having trouble with them ( well, acually I was having trouble with them). The pure white pedals were overexposing big time. I tried some different settings with mixed reaults. I need more practice, yahoo.
I found some Jack in the Pulpits on the National Forest Roads Granville yesterday. Take the West Hill Road off route 100 behind the Glass Blowing Studio. Drive along until you see a road on the left with a gate and a sign saying 55. Drive this road until you see a road on the right with a sign saying 50. Drive this about 3/4 of a mile and you will see an area of planted pines on your right. You will drive around a sharp right hand curve and you will have pines on both sides. When the pines stop start looking on the both sides of the road. They will be in patches all along the road. When you are done on this road, go back to road 55 and turn right. Drive road 55 to the end where you will have to turn left onto road 101. You will have to drive this road for a while to find the Jack in the Pulpits. This road is all wooded except for a small field on the right. After you pass this field, look to the left edge of the road for the flowers. Pay attention to a set of old guardrails on you left. It looks like late May will be the best time to look for these flowers.
Hey, Phil: Thanks for keeping us up to date on your finds.
I found a lot of Ladyslippers on the 4 mile Road in the Nulhegan Basin yesterday. This road goes between the Henshaw Road and the Lewis Pond Road. There are quite a few up now and more on the way. They are in scattered bunches and not easy to spot from the road. Silly me, I didn't take any mileage readings. All I can tell you is there is a bunch about 8/10s of a mile east of the Molly Beatty Bog. Most of the ladyslippers were between the Henshaw Road and the Bog. There were a lot of Painted Trilliums on this road also. I must have spent 3 hours and took 400 photos on this road.