Spring Has Sprung!

WOW, It is finally starting to feel more and more like Spring each day and today is no exception! With blue skies overhead and warm sunspots on the ground, I felt immediately invited to get outside and start exploring. As I stepped into the yard, the first thing I noticed was the variety of new colors scattered throughout the lawn! It seems like overnight, all the flowers around me decided to blossom. As I wandered around the yard enjoying the many new colors and the sounds of pollinators buzzing around, I began to wonder if I had enough variety to create a rainbow! So, I decided to collect specimens, by way of photography, and see if I could capture every color of the rainbow right in my own backyard.

​RED

Okay. Right off the bat, I was confronted with a challenge. I could not find a single red flower, which resulted in me adjusting my personal challenge to finding anything nature-related in my yard that was red. With that, I was able to find something pretty close to a flower, a bud!

In just a couple of days, this Flowering Quince will be covered in tiny red flowers, giving me something to anticipate!

ORANGE

Much to my surprise, I was unable to find anything orange in my yard either! With that, came the second adjustment to my rainbow flower scavenger hunt. I will accept pink in place of orange.

Thankfully, with that minor adjustment, I was able to find two flowers to represent the orange section of the rainbow. These Hyacinths were leftover from Easter last year and started their lives as house plants. After a successful first indoor bloom, they were transplanted into the yard, where they are flowering once again! 

YELLOW

​Finally a section of the rainbow I don't have to make any adjustments for! Perhaps one of the most familiar Spring flowers in blossom  right now is the Daffodil. With their uniquely shaped petals and their beautiful warm hues of orange and yellow, it is no surprise that they are a Springtime favorite! 

After taking a lot of photos of Daffodils (they're my favorite), I found another yellow flower in the yard that I needed to peruse my flower guide to identify. A couple minutes of noting the shape of the flower, how many petals it had, and they style of plant they were growing on, led me to the conclusion that I was looking at a Forsythia! This find was especially exciting because of the amount of pollinator buzzing I heard coming from the blossoms.

My third yellow find was a pesky Dandelion. Although technically considered weeds, I do have to admit that these bright little flowers bring a smile to my face.

GREEN

This would have been more challenging if I were looking for green flowers (thank you modification #1).

BLUE

Hidden in a shady corner of the yard were some very vibrant blue flowers that we know commonly as Glory-of-the-snow. These small, six-petaled flowers get their name because of how early they blossom. In some parts of North America, they can be seen blooming in snow sprinkled landscapes.

I was able to find two different variations of these flowers. One was completely blue with a darker blue stripe through the center of the each petal and the other was white with a light blue stripe through the center of each petal.

VIOLET

Possibly one of the most appropriately named flowers, I was able to find a patch of violets to top-off my rainbow flower collection! Unlike their name indicates, there are over 500 species of violets and not all of them are purple.

The two variations I found in my yard today both had violet color in them, but one was almost completely purple and the other variety was mostly white with a purply-blue color towards the center of the flower.

Not only are violets beautiful to look at, but they are also edible. People often garnish salads with them for a pop of color, but my favorite way to eat violets is when they're candied on top of cookies!

​I had a lot of fun looking for flowers and areas of color in my yard today, and I hope that this inspires some you to do the same! I see the same flowers come up every year and still had a difficult time identifying a lot of them. It felt really great to get out my flower guide and learn a little more about what is growing right outside my window! Looking for and identifying flowers also gave me an opportunity to chat with some of my family members in a new way, which was a welcome change after weeks of being at home with them :)

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Notes on Nature

A couple of weeks ago we encouraged our blog readers to start nature journaling as a way to connect more with nature and find moments of peace during these uncertain times. It has brought the NRT staff so much joy to see how friends and community members have started and kept up with their journals! 

Above is an example of how one person focused on a specific section of tree to practice capturing light and multiple layers of branches. Drawing a tree from straight below is a great example of looking at something we see everyday from a new perspective. The use of shading and different hues to show texture and depth really make the different branches stand out from one another. Thank you for reminding us to look up! 

For those of you who are looking to continue your nature journal journey, or for those of you who are just beginning, I am curious to see if you can find an animal to draw for your next entry. This can be an animal that lives in your home, or an animal that you observe outside.

A great way to practice drawing animals is to start by thinking of them as mere shapes. What shape is their head? Does their nose come to a point? Do they have much of a neck? How round is their body?
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Once you've created an outline of your critter using shapes, you can begin to connect the shapes in a way that is more true to the creature you're observing.  You can add texture to represent fur, feathers, or even scales! 

The two images below are from a wonderful nature journaling book, Keeping a Nature Journal written by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth. The images show us how a cluster of thoughtful shapes can easily become a detailed scientific illustration!

As you are creating your nature journal, we encourage you to share your illustrations and discoveries with us here at the NRT. In each blog post, we will include a new prompt as well as examples of nature journal pages from community members. If you would like your nature journaling efforts to be part of our NatureTalk blog, be sure to send photos of your work as well as any additional information to education.nrt@gmail.com. We can't wait to see what you create!