HELLEBORES - Early garden plants to bloom - Hellebores, despite common names such as winter rose, Christmas rose and Lenten Rose, are not closely related to the rose family. Ours, probably Helleborus niger, grow close to the ground and the blooms point downward.

GETTING A START - A Heron, most likely a female, gets a start at building a nest on the beaver pond. The two nests that survived from last year are already occupied, so this Heron needs to start from scratch.

WHAT YOU TALKIN' ABOUT WILLIS? - A male Cardinal is talking back. Maybe I shouldn't have spent all day watching the Masters? :-)

UN-COMMON - A female Common Merganser on Mill Pond. We're seeing lots of migrating waterfowl on area ponds....Ah Spring!

