Yellow blooms of yellow trout-lily, Indian cucumber, northern spicebush, and tuliptree
Pink or lavender to white blooms of eastern redbud, liverleaf, Virginia springbeauty, and violets
White blooms of mayapple, bloodroot, smooth Solomon’s seal, Solomon’s plume, flowering dogwood, blackhaw, southern arrow-wood, cutleaf toothwort, star chickweed, and hairy sweet-cicely
Maroon blooms of pawpaw
Greenish to purple hoods of Jack-in-the-pulpit
Fresh pale green leaves emerging after winter—tuliptree leaves among the earliest
Migratory and year-round resident birds nest-building; some young beginning to hatch by mid to late spring
Pollinators on early spring flowers such as pawpaw
Lush greenery on the forest floor
Multiple kinds of ferns fully unfurled
Yellow blooms of richweed
Orange blooms of orange jewelweed
Tiny white blooms of broadleaf enchanter’s-nightshade
Lime green fruit of mayapple and pawpaw
Red berries of Solomon’s plume
Dark berries of Indian cucumber
Butterflies, moths and other insect pollinators
Hungry baby birds calling to parents; busy, busy parents finding food; fledglings learning to fly
Redback salamanders rustling under damp leaves
Green ferns persist until frost
Yellow leaves of tuliptree, northern spicebush, American hornbeam, and American beech—by far the most obvious fall color
Red leaves of flowering dogwood
White blooms of white wood-aster
Orange blooms of orange jewelweed
Red berries of Jack-in-the-pulpit, Solomon’s plume, northern spicebush, flowering dogwood, American strawberry-bush, (and the invasive non-native linden arrow-wood shrub)
Dark berries of southern arrow-wood and blackhaw
Green pawpaw fruits with brown spots as they ripen
Squirrels eating beechnuts and American hornbeam nutlets
Birds harvesting berries
Toads preparing to burrow deep in the soil for winter
Interesting shapes and textures: majestic straight trunks of tuliptree; smooth, gray bark and “rippled muscle” trunks of American hornbeam
White streaks ("ski-trails") on trunks of northern red oak
Fat onion-shaped flower buds of flowering dogwood
White-tailed deer browsing on bare twigs of trees and shrubs
Winter birds