Upon returning to my phenology spot this week, I was delighted to see how green it has gotten. Though there weren’t any wildflowers poking through the leaf litter, there was an abundance of vibrant green moss which carpeted the forest floor and draped over the trees and rocks. The trees and bushes were just starting to leaf out, but there were no full leaves. There were no wildflowers in sight, but some fiddlehead ferns were sprouting. I saw some more deer tracks, though, and instead of being in snow, as they had been so many times, they were in the mud. I also encountered more birds singing than I had before, and even came across a rectangular hole that a pileated woodpecker had drilled in a paper birch snag. I saw a slug on a fern leaf on the forest floor as well.
