Isolated golf balls

[altivo]

No kidding. The NOAA weather forecast this morning told us there was a strong probability of thundershowers, with possible quarter-sized hail and isolated golf balls.

It didn't rain or thunder here, but at 6 pm they were still blathering on about isolated golf balls. I've been watching all day for white, dimpled, plastic objects falling from the sky, but didn't get to see even one. Now I'm disappointed.

Countdown to vacation: 1.5 workdays to go.

All the spring flowers are jumbled up by the record warm weather. White trilliums are opening. This is surely the first time I've seen daffodils, scylla, grape hyacinth, bleeding heart, and trilliums all open at the same time. Not to mention redbud, maples, and oaks all flowering within the same week. The honeysuckle and lilacs are opening too. There'll be nothing left by June at this rate. Blackberry and wild cherry may still be in their normal schedule, I'm not sure yet.

I've already seen butterflies skipping about, and not just early blues, but red admirals and mourning cloaks. I wouldn't be surprised to find a rose breasted grosbeak or scarlet tanager outside in the morning. A colleague is already seeing migrant spring warblers, even as the Audubon folks are still reporting snowy owl sitings. And meanwhile? Still a chance of isolated golf balls, they're saying.

Comments

[frith]

The early narcissus flowers are _just_ starting to bloom today, and so far, it's only the crocuses and danfords that have come and gone. I think I saw a morning cloak a few weeks back, but that's a sap-sucking spring butterfly, so no surprise there.

[altivo]

You're enough farther north that you should be running later than we are even in a normal year of course.

I usually do see the Red Admirals first but not until late April. I have never seen a Mourning Cloak here until May, I'm pretty sure. Some years we get those tiny little blue butterflies (there seem to be dozens of species that only an expert can tell apart) as early as the beginning of April. Butterflies in March, even the last week of the month, seem very unusual to me.