A horned grebe is shown. (Scot Stewart photo)
“Nothing like the petals of a spring beauty or a marsh marigold to take the sting out of a late snow.” — Anonymous
It has been a roller coaster of a spring and it seems like that is becoming winter’s in the Upper Peninsula. Luckily there has been enough warmth and sunshine to provide encouragement to the spring ephemerals like spring beauties and trailing arbutus, and the yellow marsh marigolds are just begging to open their flower buds in the wetlands in Marquette.
It is also fortunate many songbirds have taken a slow path back north this spring with many still holding off still to the south. Leaf-out is well underway in places like northern Illinois where temperatures have reached 80oF this past week, but in the U.P., not so much. Recent snow though did push the official snowfall totals in some places to pass the record annual low snowfall total, and no temperatures in the near future here look to pass 70 degrees F.