April flowers - Part 2

May has hit its stride, but I wanted to revisit April before too much time passes. Our Internet connection was glacially slow that month, but out in the forest things were moving at a fast clip. Fortunately my camera was still working well.

Taking certain pictures turned out to be tricky. I've never learned much about photography, so it was only this year that I realized that flower pictures taken during lower light conditions are better than those taken with the sun high in the sky on a cloudless day. However, spring flowers don't open randomly. Many stay closed when the air temperature is too cool for pollinators to be flying around, such as during mornings, evenings, and cloudy days when my camera was all ready to record their beauty. Even when I was out when the flowers where still open but the sunshine had started to fade, blossoms would be drooping instead of all facing in the same direction.

Then there's the short blooming period. This bloodroot flower will pollinate itself if cold weather or other factors inhibit insect pollination so it can move along to seed formation.



The speckled leaves of trout lilies carpet many areas of the forest floor and even the edges of our lawn, but only plants old enough to have two leaves will flower. I watched the buds for days, waiting for them to open, then could only look on as they opened so wide in the blazing spring sunlight that the petals touched in back. The few pictures I did take were nice but not as impressive.



Finally, five days before the end of April, waves of trillium opened. Perhaps because temperatures had warmed, I haven't noticed trilliums to close, making them ideal subjects for me to photograph.