Last weekend was one of those near-perfect times to be in Georgia in early April — cloudless blue skies, temperatures just right, wildflowers blooming, trees leafing out, butterflies flitting about, birds singing exuberantly as if for pure pleasure.
For me, there’s no staying inside at such a time; it’s what I call a “blooms and birds” weekend.
For the blooms, my wife and I headed to Walker County in northwest Georgia to stroll the Shirley Miller Wildflower Trail, which follows a rushing stream through a beautiful mountain cove called the Pocket in the Crockford-Pigeon Mountain Wildlife Management Area.
Named for former Gov. Zell Miller’s spouse, the trail is perhaps the best wildflower walk in Georgia from mid-March to mid-April. A boardwalk covering half the trail’s length protects the blooms from trampling. The other half is a semi-rugged path that ends at a scenic waterfall called Pocket Falls.
As they usually do, the Pocket’s wildflowers lived up to their billing. Virginia bluebells, one of the Pocket’s signature wildflowers, bloomed in thick clusters. White-flowered bent trilliums, mixed in with rich colonies of blooming purple phacelia, put on dazzling displays on the slopes above the trail.
Other lush blooms included those of toad shade trillium, sweet betsy trillium, foam flower, chickweed, wild geranium, toothwort, rue-anemone, Canada violet, celendine poppy, spring beauty, blue phlox and many others.
For the birds, I ventured closer to home in Decatur, to the serene Lullwater Park on the Emory University campus, where I joined fellow Atlanta Audubon Society members for a morning bird walk. We saw and heard 40 species, including a black-and-white warbler and an unusual number of blue jays.
At peaceful Chandler Lake, we paused to watch northern rough-winged swallows, barn swallows and chimney swifts dart and dip over the water.
This weekend promises more of these same spring glories.
In the sky: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The moon will be first-quarter Wednesday. Mercury is low in the west at dusk. Venus rises out of the east less than an hour before sunrise. Mars rises a few hours after sunset. Jupiter is high in the east at dusk. Saturn rises out of the east also at dusk.
