Lonicera villosa, where are you?

If you don’t already know this wild berry let me introduce you to Mountain fly honeysuckle or if you prefer Northern fly honeysuckle. These in the photo have a pleasant taste of lemony blueberries though some of this plants cousins developed over in Russia & Japan which have fruit 6 times the size of my wild berries are said to have a flavor between raspberry and blueberry and are known as Haskap and also Honeyberry and some folks are now growing these Asian developed bushes here in North America.

The batteries passed out in my camera so we will have to settle for a blurry shot on these berries.

Here is a photo of an early May bumblebee hanging in there doing her thing to help these blooms become the berries above.

A patch of Mountain fly honeysuckle in mid-May.  It is extremely difficult to notice these berries on the plants when they are ripe due to the berries being covered very well by the leaves, so if you live in the northern part of the USA or Canada start looking under the leaves in late June to early July, but first get acquainted with the berry patch in early May when this plant is one of the first to have green leaves and early blooms before most of the blueberries and Aronias. Once the other plants in the area green-up Lonicera villosa is hard to find as its name is to remember. Look for the plants in peaty or wet rocky areas. Hope you get a chance to try these little treats, you’ll probably be the first in your neighborhood to do so. ciao

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Northern fly honeysuckle coming out of its shell

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