A few violets are starting to bloom. The henbit (what they call heal-all down here, Bee) is thick in all our yards. Yards and banks are also generously blanketed with now with pale blue clouds of common speedwell. It forms a undercover for the daffodils that are blooming everywhere now. I have one bleeding heart that never went dormant last year that has just set flower-buds (it is at least a month early.) Both the crested and the reticulated iris are in full bloom. Daylilies and garden phlox are sprouting and creeping phlox is just getting going with bloom on south facing slopes.

The wild onions are up. wintercress and chickweed beginning to come on pretty strong.

The effects of this prolonged, exceptional drought are very apparent in the sie of even the wild flowers and weeds.   

saw my first brown thrasher this morning. A pair of house finches are building their nest in a beaded hanging candle sconce that hangs from the eave on my front porch. This will be the 4rd year house finches have done this - I wonder if it is the same pair, descendants of the original pair, or what. Last year and this, there was no 'beating around the bush." It is like they check-in curbside and get busy with the nest building in that same sconce.