American Hazelnut, in flower

Big Island Wildlife Area in Marion County, Ohio, at dawn. This is shooting westward; the sunrise was to my back. Sometimes the colors are better on the opposite side of the earth, and that was the case today.

Today was an all too rare photo excursion, at least of late. An overly ambitious speaking schedule largely kept me from the outdoors for the past several weeks, along with two book projects. No worries about the speaking now, or at least for a while. Nearly everything on the books through spring has been scrubbed, courtesy of the Corona virus and bans on meetings. Maybe I can get out and shoot a bit more than usual this spring.

Spring was really in the air today. While I made the above image, squadrons of newly arrived tree swallows aerially cavorted overhead. Lots of fowl rocketed about: green-winged teal, northern shoveler, mallard, American black duck, ring-necked duck, northern pintail, tundra swan and others. Songbirds were singing like crazy. A special treat was the occasional beautiful whistled song of American tree sparrows, a species we don't get to hear that often at these southerly latitudes.

Later in the day, I espied a thicket of American hazelnut, Corylus americana, in full flower. These straggly shrubs bloom extremely early, and were it not for the conspicuous pendant spikes, or catkins, of male flowers most people would never notice this plant at this time of year. While the two inch or so long staminate (male) flower spikes are what catches the eye, I was much more interested in seeing the amazing but utterly inconspicuous pistillate (female) flowers. And sure enough, the shrubs were bedecked with them.

A female flower is in the photo above, right where the male flower spikes fuse with the branch. It's really tough to see, and one can see why the female flowers are mostly passed by. But, we will clip on the 100mm macro lens, add a 25mm extension tube, and try to show the true beauty of these elfin flowers...

There it is! Female hazelnut flowers are a gorgeous crimson hue, and structurally resemble some sort of strange sea anemone. Scroll back to the photo above, and you'll now more easily see the female flower in that image.

If you see any hazelnuts dripping with the male flower spikes, take a closer look for the interesting female flowers.