Midsummer Prairie - But Where Are the Bees and Butterflies?

Yesterday I took a long, leisurely walk through prairie and oak savanna habitats in Carleton College's Cowling Arboretum. It was a day that seemed to presage autumn, with moderate temperatures and a good breeze pushing clouds that occasionally looked stormy, though we got no rain.

Compass plant is the tallest flower on the scene, routinely reaching
 5-6' or more.

Lush mix of grasses and flowering plants

I think this is hoary vervain (Verbena
 stricta).  I'm sure someone will let me know if it's not.

Purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea) and grasses blowing in the wind

But where were the bees and butterflies? Granted, it was a windy day, which probably accounts for a good part of the quiet, but at least low down among the thick stems I would have expected to see the landscape busy with insect activity -- but I barely saw any.

In fact, I've seen very few butterflies or bees at all this year. At home, my flowering thyme, bee balm and Joe Pye weed should be humming with bees, but I've seen only a couple here and there, and a couple of butterflies. There are many factors at play, including our cold spring, but something certainly doesn't feel right.

Pasqueflowers

Over the course of several springs, I have seen my fellow Northfielder Rob Hardy mention his delight in and expeditions in search of pasqueflowers, but until around this time last year, I had never seen them. It's a native plant, Anemone patens, also sometimes known as prairie crocus, windflower, and prairie smoke. I'm charmed to learn that it is South Dakota's state flower. It's one of the earliest flowers to bloom in the spring, appearing in low clumps here and there in dry or sandy soils. It's native to much of the north central and northwest United States.

Dave and I saw these pretty specimens last Saturday at a prairie remnant located a few miles northeast of Northfield.

I'm always interested in names and their origins. Pasque is an old word for Easter or Passover (think paschal lamb), which is a natural association because of the plant's blooming time, but apparently this was an adaptation of the earlier name for the European version of this flower, originally called passeflower, from passefleur, simply meaning pass/surpass + flower in Old French. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pasqueflower).

You can read more about pasqueflowers in Minnesota on the Minnesota Wildflowers and Minnesota Seasons websites.

Prairie Flowers at St. Olaf Natural Lands

Today was such a gorgeous day -- downright chilly by normal July standards, but thoroughly refreshing and invigorating. I hadn't been over to the St. Olaf College natural lands for quite a while, and decided to visit the prairie restoration loop, which proved to be a sea of yellows and purples.

As has been typical this year, I hardly saw any butterflies and just a few bees. In the photo below, you can see orange pollen building up on the bee's "pollen basket" on its leg. The flower is purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea).

The tall yellow sunflower-like plant below is compass plant (Silphium laciniatum). The common name comes from the tendency of the lower leaves to align their edges in a north-south direction. The compass plant is said to be very long-lived, surviving as long as a century. Botanists use the term forb for herbs (non-woody plants) that are not grasses or grasslike, so the clover above and compass plant below would both be forbs.

I'm very much a beginner at dragonfly identification, but it looks to me as if the one below is a twelve-spotted skimmer (Libellula pulchella). I've been seeing these quite often in recent outings. Today they zigged and zagged along the path ahead of me, rarely landing or staying long in a good spot for me to get a photo, so I was pleased to be able to get this one.

The forecast in southeastern Minnesota is for quite a few more pleasant days ahead, with highs only in the 70s F. and nightly lows mostly in the 50s. That's great sleeping weather, and perfect for getting out and about. Enjoy!

Mystery Wildflower in Garden: Goat's Beard

A tall, unfamiliar, untidy, somewhat grass-like plant shot up quite suddenly on the edge of a small flower bed by our front door. I even wondered briefly if it could be corn, planted from a stray bit of birdseed. Then it formed a narrow flower pod that looked a bit like very small okra, and one day when I was home for lunch I noticed it had opened into a yellow flower rather like a largish, single-layer dandelion. The flower closed again in the afternoon, which seemed like odd behavior -- plenty of flowers close at night, but I hadn't seen one close not long after noon before. Now it has three or four flower heads, each on its own stalk branching from the main stem.


Well, all these clues and a scan of our Wildflowers of Wisconsin book (hey, close enough), quickly led to an identification: Goat's Beard, Tragopogon dubius (great name, especially if dubius means what it sounds like).

Sometimes called Yellow Goatsbeard, this European import looks like a large dandelion and is common along roads and in open fields. Its large yellow flower head, which turns to face the sun, opens only on sunny mornings and closes by noon, which has led to another common name, Johnny-go-to-bed-at-noon (several other plants share this moniker)... The seed head looks like a giant dandelion plume or like an old gray goat's beard..."

--Stan Tekiela, Wildflowers of Wisconsin field guide (Adventure Publications, 2000).

It sounds as if, if I let this one go to seed, we'll have more in the future. It wouldn't be an unattractive plant in a group near the back of a larger bed, but I don't think it's in the right place where it is now. But I have enjoyed the serendipity of it.

Prairie and Sky

Here are more photos from the St. Olaf college natural lands taken Saturday morning. The St. Olaf wind turbine dominates the landscape if you're looking anywhere in its general direction. The two wind turbines in Northfield, one here at St. Olaf and the other owned by Carleton College but standing on land slightly east of town, have come to be iconic symbols of this small city.

The tall prairie grasses (I believe Big Bluestem is what we're seeing here) bent and swayed in the breeze.

Light purple wildflowers in the aster family and goldenrod were common, as well as plenty of other plants I can't identify, like the greenish spikes below.

Can anyone tell me what these huge spikes are? They must have been close to ten feet tall. I have seen similar things on a much smaller scale, but have no idea what they might be.

Wildflowers and Ducks in Late July

Walking around the ponds near the soccer fields on the southeast edge of town a couple of nights ago, we couldn't help noticing a lot of purple. The tall, flamboyantly hued but rather messy looking flower above was not familiar to me, but I have tentatively identified it as Western Ironweed (Vernonia fasciculata), a member of the aster family. If anyone knows it to be something else, please let me know!

Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), or Bee Balm, was blooming prolifically amid the waving seedheads of the tall grasses.

A family of Blue-winged Teals hurried away from a lurking place along the shore when we disturbed them by walking too close. Later we saw another family with even smaller ducklings.

The solitary little duck above proved by its stiff, upright tail and light neck to be a Ruddy Duck -- the first I've seen, as far as I know. Apparently the males have beautiful blue bills, but no such feature was visible from this distance in the golden evening light.

A Walk in the Woods

A friend and I found our way to an eastern spur of the Cannon River Wilderness Area (Google map here) on Sunday, from an unobtrusive entry point on Hwy 20 (Cannon City Blvd), south of Northfield. Shortly after you enter the woods, 60 wooden steps lead steeply down into a ravine, and an alternating boardwalk and trail winds through woodlands, crosses Fiske Creek, and climbs to a lovely oak savannah decked with wildflowers -- yellow black-eyed susans and purple spikes of blazing star (liatris) -- where on this occasion a red-tailed hawk wheeled and cried overhead. It was one of the prettiest spots I've ever seen, I must say. We also came upon several growths of black raspberry canes, and gathered a couple of handfuls of sweet, glossy, black berries.

Afterward, I picked up my 7-year-old son from his dad's and told him all about it, and he was so intrigued we went back out and did the whole walk over again.

Update: My friend thinks I should have mentioned seeing a female American Redstart in the woods -- a lovely little gray and yellow bird (the male, of course, is more boldly colored). We're near the edge of their summer breeding grounds, which are mainly to our east.