This is a Pickerel Creek phenology post.
High temp yesterday – 55°F
Cool and sunny
Sunrise at 5:53AM, sunset at 8:00PM – fourteen hours and seven minutes of daylight, sounds like summer to me!
Doesn’t look like summer, though. Still waiting on those alders to leaf out enough to be noticeable. Regardless of the lack of leaves, I was so distracted by all the butterflies I spotted while walking down to the creek (painted ladies, tortoiseshells, whites, azures…) that I was almost late getting back for a meeting, and the grass has definitely gotten much taller and greener since the last time I visited.
Here in southern Oregon our alders have really burst into leaf—what’s your latitude? Ours is 42N. It’s interesting how that all works. I’ve only seen a few cabbage whites and ONE painted lady and that was a couple weeks ago.
I checked and where this was taken is about 45.5N. Some of the alders are putting out a few small leaves but it’s not enough to make them look green in this photo yet!
Spring is coming to your area soon, our trees have nearly finished leafing out, just a few stubborn oaks left to go.
Below freezing again last night I believe. Not good for the fruit crop….. We have leaf out.