Wild columbine

It wasn't the nicest... or warmest... of days, but the sunlight is strong and that sent a message to the wild columbines that, temperature notwithstanding, it was time to start flowering. This, by historical standards—what I'd call Thoreau standards—is at least a week early. When we moved to this ridge nearly four decades ago, the wild columbines began their glorious crimson show on May 4th or thereabouts. Now the blooms begin appearing during the last week of April. When the flower show opens for business, you know, also based on history, that another marvelous show will soon begin: the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds will make it back from migration and start to establish nesting territories. These marvelous mites will, in short order, be recharging their batteries by drinking nectar from the columbine flowers, whose intricate anatomy developed in lockstep with the hummer's long bill—an evolutionary pas de deux.