Nut trees and butterflies and bittersweet.

Walking through the Woods with my eyes up watching the crowns of the trees, I love seeing the beautiful spring green of the expanding leaves. Over the weekend, I noticed that the pecan and walnut trees were some of the last to flush their leaves. Box elders, elms, bur oaks, viburnums, cottonwoods, plums, mulberry, red bud were all in the early bunch. Sugarberries, green ash, were later. Pecan and Walnut were two of the latest. I still haven't seen any leaves on the exotic invasive Mimosa. I wonder why pecan and walnut are often late. Do they invest in less freeze tolerant tissues, like maybe compound leaves?

Near the East Pond by the large pecan at the bend in the trail, the first yellow tiger swallowtail flitted by me, floating in the under story. Earlier I've seen several/ many of the goatweed leafwing (one of our two common earliest butterflies), many red admirals on the Elaeagnus autumn olive, some painted ladies, a few viceroys (looking rather worn).
Last couple of days ran into Jenna, Sonia, Ellen at the NW corner, looking for edibles.
Spring time need to find and cut new threatening exotics like amur honeysuckle, Ailanthus tree of heaven, Nandina heavenly bamboo, and Celastrus oriental bittersweet vines. Yesterday went to reduce the patch of bittersweet. Going to be a long task. Small area less than 50 feet x 50 feet there are hundreds of spring sprouts with new leaves. Each must be carefully sorted out, cut and treated. I gave up after >50 as day was closing. I think I may need to use strategy of waiting for larger bittersweet vines to climb up over a meter tall, then cut and treat those, hoping to eliminate the entire plant. Cutting scores of 2-4 inch tall sprigs, each 2 mm in diameter and partially hidden in fallen leaves or under native vegetation, requires long periods of kneeling or sitting. With ticks starting to move in the Woods, that may not be a great idea.