Early birds

I've started seeing some new shades of green around town, especially noticeable on a cloudy day like today. Yep, the trees that leaf out early in the spring—ash is perhaps the most likely to jump the gun—have suddenly become very industrious. But their more cautious cousins won't be far behind.

Some of the most spectacular early spring sights are courtesy of the flowering trees, and they're starting to put on their brief, but impressive, shows. Dogwoods are usually among the very earliest. They're more common further east, in the damper climes of the east Texas woodlands, but we do have a few around here, like this one busting out in front of the Olmos Dam. (This is one of the pictures I took about 10 days ago, part of a group I plan to use in a future post about this structure and its interesting history.)


Redbuds are much more common and I just noticed their splashy purplish pink blossoms for the first time today. This specimen is in Monte Vista on my way home from work. I need to enjoy these beauties while I can because they shed the lovely blooms much too quickly, and for the rest of the year aren't really very attractive trees (imho).

Speaking of Monte Vista, one of the streets that begins in that neighborhood is named after this spectacular flowering native tree, the huisache. The street runs as far west as where I found this specimen, although it's actually on a different thoroughfare. It looks awfully nice in bloom, but apparently on ranges it's something of a nuisance, as you can see if you follow the link to a "Brush Buster" website.


I'll try to keep my eyes open and my camera ready and bring some more signs of spring to the blog in upcoming days.