Warm Days Cool Nights - Spring Butterflies

Yesterday I worked on the tree tutorial loop starting at the NE Gate. Pleasant mild day. I saw two big orange fritillaries chasing each other around a big pecan tree and two individual morning cloak butterflies flying through the Woods; a big green-eyed cranefly at the same pecan. Sadly found a dead young snapping turtle at Island Crossing - recently deceased, no reason evident. Three big live leaches still attached together on its underside. In the afternoon, Ron and Bruce helped me confirm many of the trees on the tutorial loop including the fern at the junction with the Pipeline Trail - ebony spleenwort, Asplenium platyneuron. Ron corrected my identification of chickasaw plum and I accept that it probably is hawthorn Crataegus. Published records of the part of the Woods flora include Crataegus viridis. Many of the elms along the loop have opened yellowish brown flowers, particularly the taller trees with the higher branches more exposed to the warming sun. At home 80% of the lilac leaf buds have begun to open and show new green leaves emerging and the first two daffodils are blooming.