Now is the best time to notice northern fly honeysuckle (Lonicera villosa) in the northern states of the USA and in southern Canada, it starts to bloom even before the amelanchiers (juneberries) in my area and is difficult to locate by the end of the month when the surrounding plants are also covered in leaves.
I will be returning to take more photos of these plants in a short time as they will be covered with bees and I am interested to see which types of wild bees will be present for this early feast of blossoms.
Northern fly honeysuckle (Lonicera villosa & caerulea) has been developed into a commercial crop in some parts of Asia, especially so in Japan and there are a few growers in North America as well, the berries are usually marketed as (Haskap or Honeyberries) which taste like a cross between raspberries and blueberries and are much larger than the wild varieties. Hopefully at some point you will have a chance to try Haskap or the wild fly honeysuckle as when fully ripe they have an excellent flavour and boost impressive nutritional figures. Also I should mention a few other varieties of honeysuckle blossoms are added to salads or added to teas and they are sometimes dried and used for cough relief and for asthma.
The last photo is what I suspect is a ring-necked pheasant egg and it inspired the title of the post. This egg was laying a few feet from the fly honeysuckle bushes on the opposite side of the egg the shell was broken and dry so it appears a chick had recently emerged. The egg was approximately 2 inches long by 1 and a half inches width, similar to a small hen egg, if your familiar with wild bird eggs do you have another suggestion on what type of egg this could be? ciao for now
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