I Spy on the Trails - July 1 - 15, 2026

Tree frog

The first half of the month continued our usual weather roller-coaster. We had significant climate-change-fueled storms that dumped huge amounts of rain throughout the Driftless region. At out home, we felt lucky to only receive 5 inches over a two-day period; many other areas received far more. Flooding and  storm damage was reported across a number of parks, trails and communities. With much of Minnesota suffering drought, the rain was still welcome. Plants loved it and so did the fungi. The temps were about normal for early July with high 70s and 80s before ending these two weeks with humid 90s and a heat dome over our area. Ugh.

While my hiking has been curtailed due to a bum foot, I still had time to go on a hike with friends sponsored by the Friends of the Blufflands and led by naturalist Danielle Hudson. It was exactly as described in the program: "Many of us are aware of honeybees. But did you know that honeybees are actually nonnative and that there are 400-500 native bees that live in Wisconsin? Most of these bees are small and inconspicuous, lead solitary lives, and nest in the ground. Despite their small size, however, they play a huge role in pollinating many of the plants that grow in our area, including on the remnant prairies that Friends of the Blufflands has been restoring."

Danielle Hudson sharing information on
Wisconsin native bees in the field

The hands-on observation morning was amazing and my head is stuffed with so many facts to sort out. One of my big takeaways was the importance of these tiny native bees in pollination of native plants. Non-native honeybees can have a massive effect of the availability of pollen for our natives. Keeping a balance so that native bees can do their pollination work is key.

And on this hike, I learned from a friend who co-owns a prairie that, despite my fascination with Deptford pinks, alas, they are also non-native and compete on prairies with our native plants. 

I love the fact that so much learning happened on this hike. It's one of the reasons I am such a huge advocate for guided hiking and curious learning. The more we know, the more we can support conservation efforts and share positive practices. As the Friends of the Blufflands quoted post-hike on their Facebook page: "In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind." I'm working on it!

You can join other "Second Saturday" guided hikes with the Friends of the Blufflands coming up. Plus they added a guided “Bumblebee and Blossoms” hike with Mike O'Brien on Saturday July 18. Meet at 9:00 am on Dobsen's Tract (meet at 5788 Thistledown Dr, La Crosse, WI). This is an easy hike on mowed trails on a small prairie right next to the parking lot that is packed with bumblebees.

I finished out the two weeks up on the shores of Lake Superior where kayaking was more my mode of adventuring. Along with the rest of the Driftless region, we shared very rare mid-90s temps on the big lake’s shore  The evacuation of the BWCA and other wilderness areas on both sides of the border on Monday was prompted by multiple wildfires in that area. It made for a masked and very smoky drive back through Wisconsin Wednesday.

See you on the trails!

Plant Observations
Bloomed

• alyssum, hoary

  

  Small flowered leaf cup about to bloom

  
  
• avens, white
• basil, wild
• bedstraw, northern
• bergamot, wild
• black-eyed Susan
• buttercup, meadow 
• catnip
• cinquefoil, sulfur
• cinquefoil, tall
• columbine
• coneflower, grey-headed
• coneflower, purple
• coreopsis, prairie
• daisy, oxeye  (non-native)
• Deptford pink (non-native)
• fern, bulblet bladderfern
• fern, interrupted 
• fern, lady
• fern, sweet
• flax, grooved
• fleabane, prairie
• harebell
• hawkweed, narrowleaf
• honewort, Canadian

  

  Whorled milkweed

  
  
• leafcup, small flowered
• leadplant
• lettuce, Canada
• loosestrife, whorled yellow
• milkweed, butterfly weed
• milkweed, common
• milkweed, whorled
• mullein, common
• nightshade, bitter
• nightshade, eastern enchanter’s
• poppy mallow, purple
• prairie clover, purple
• prairie clover, white
• puccoon, Carolina
• raspberry, dwarf red
• rockcress, lyreleaf
• rose, prairie
• spiderwort, Ohio
• spikenard, American
• spurge, flowering
• spurge, leafy
• thimbleweed, tall
• verbena, hoary
• woodsorrel, slender yellow
• yarrow

Greened/sprouted

• bee balm, spotted
• boneset, false
• roundhead bushclover

Fruited/Past Bloom:

• alumroot, Richardson's

  

  Fruited false Solomon's seal

  
  
• baneberry, white
• beardtongue, large
• candle anemone
• ground cherry
• Jack-in-the-pulpit
• raspberry, black
• raspberry, dwarf red
• Solomon’s seal, false
• Solomon’s seal, smooth 
• Waxfloer shinleaf
• wild ginger

Fungi/Moss/Lichen

• fungi, star jelly
• moss, broom forkmoss
• moss, delicate fern
• moss, pincushion
• moss, red-stemmed feather moss
• moss, woodsy thyme-
• mushroom, bitter bolete
• mushroom, scarlet elfin cup

Wildlife Observations (seen, hear, detected)

Birds

• blackbird, red-winged
• blue jay
• cardinal, northern
• catbird, gray
• cedar waxwing
• cowbird, brown-headed
• crane, sandhill
• dickcissel
• dove, mourning
• finch, house
• flycatcher, great-crested
• goldfinch, American
• grosbeak, rose-breasted 
• indigo bunting
• oriole, Baltimore 
• redstart, American
• robin, American
• sparrow, chipping
• sparrow, clay-colored
• sparrow, field
• sparrow, house
• sparrow, song
• starling, European
• swallow, barn
• swallow, northern rough-winged
• swallow, tree
• thrush, wood
• towhee, eastern
• turkey, wild
• vireo, Bell's
• vireo, eastern warbling
• vireo red-eyed
• warbler, northern yellow
• wood pewee, eastern
• woodpecker, downy
• woodpecker, red-bellied
• wren, Carolina
• wren, northern house
• yellowthroat

Insects

• bee fly, greater 

  

  Eastern amberwing dragonfly

  
  
  
• bumblebee, brown belted
• butterfly, common eastern
• bumblebee, two-spotted
• butterfly, juvenal duskywing
• butterfly, Monarch
• butterfly, northern crescent
• butterfly, small white 
• damselfly, tule bluet
• dragonfly, eastern amberwing
• dragonfly, green darner
• dragonfly, Halloween pennent
• dragonfly, twelve-spotted skipper
• dragonfly, widow skimmer
• mantidfly, brown wasp
• moth, eight-spotted forester

Retiles/Amphibians

• tree frog

What are YOU seeing on your hikes?

Two weeks of hikes
Hikes below in colored, bold type or underlined have links to previous posts OR descriptions and/or location of the trails found online.

Holland Sand Prairie, Holman WI; Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, Necedah WI, ; Dug Rd Trout Run Trail, Decorah, IA; Upper Hixon Forest, La Crosse WI; urban Chicago hiking, Chicago IL; Meyer Beach, Bayfield WI

Purple poppy mallow

The "I Spy on the Trails" column is a phenology (the study of seasonal changes in plants and animals) journal to chronicle year-round the weather, plant life and wildlife I observe while hiking. It is very useful in helping me compare observations from year-to-year. The column is published monthly from September through April and then twice-a-month from May through August when warm weather brings the natural world back to vibrant life.

Images, unless noted - Marge Loch-Wouters

Seagulls standing sentry in Bayfield WI

You can read my quarterly column on seasonal hiking suggestions in Inspire(d) Driftless Magazine available online or pick up a free copy at businesses and organizations around the Driftless areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Early morning paddle
Image - Nola Larson

Ticks Down, Mosquitoes Up

If you’ve managed to get on the trails super early or super late in the day during this heat wave, it’s no news that mosquitoes are VERY active right now in this heat. The good news is that the tick activity decreases dramatically.

Check out this excerpt from an amazing online public health newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist. Started during COVID, this factual data-driven email newsletter (or substack) covers what you need to know (including another of today’s pieces on cyclospora). It is well worth your subscription to the email/substack (and donation if you are able).

Excerpt from Your Local Epidemiologist newsletter, July 14, 2026

Katelyn Jetelina and Marissa Donnelly, PhD

“Ticks are backing off

We’re well on our way down for tick season. Activity tends to drop off as we move deeper into the heat of summer.

Source: CDC; Annotated by Hannah Totte at Your Local Epidemiologist

Why? Ticks are prone to drying out, so in peak summer heat they retreat into moist, shaded leaf litter rather than questing (climbing grass to grab a host), which reduces host-seeking activity even if the tick population hasn’t shrunk. This dip also lines up with the tick life cycle: nymphs, responsible for most Lyme transmission, peak in late spring/early summer, then quiet down in the hottest weather before adults pick back up in fall.

Mosquitoes taking over

As ticks recede, mosquitoes take over and with them, the rare diseases they can carry. The most common one in the U.S. is West Nile.

Peak mosquito season is still about a month out, but the CDC is already flagging an unusually early surge in West Nile virus (WNV) activity this year. They have flagged 48 cases across 23 states detecting the virus, which is more than five times the historical average for this point in the season.

Source: CDC. Annotated by Hannah Totte at Your Local Epidemiologist

What this means for you: Most people infected with WNV never even know it because ~80% have no symptoms. But older adults and those who are immunocompromised can develop serious neurological illness. Start being consistent with using an EPA-registered repellent (with DEET or picaridin), dumping standing water around your home, and using screens at dusk and dawn.

Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) comprises a team of experts, ranging from physicians to immunologists to epidemiologists to nutritionists, working together with one goal: to “translate” ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. The YLE suite of newsletters reaches over 475,000 people across more than 132 countries. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members.” 

Stay cool and safe out there and see you on the trails.

Apple Blossom Overlook Park’s New Look

Looking towards the southeast
from the prairie

Last January I did an update on the happenings at Apple Blossom Overlook Park. The quick recap is that Winona County undertook a big project to have a portion of the forest that had come to obscure the blufftop vistas logged off. 

Everything looked rough as the forest mowing and logging was being done in the cold, sere winter with muddy trails chewed up by the heavy equipment- but the views that were opened up to the river and bluffs were spectacular even then.

I returned recently to check out the results. It is nothing short of amazing. Huge swaths of sumac that were crowding into the trails  on the prairie were removed. The prairies now have their own widened views of prairie forbs and pollinators. 

And, with the forest canopy dressed in its lush green coat of summer foliage, the park has once more taken its place as one of the more dramatic overlooks above the upper Mississippi River. There are clear views of Lock and Dam 7, the airport, Hwy 90, parts of La Crosse and the Wisconsin bluffs. 

I hope you check it out. Here are just a few shots of the transformation to encourage you to drop by for a hike and some great view.

After - 2026 eastern river view after logging

Before - 2015 riverview before logging
Image - Nola Larson

2026 - Lock & Dam 7 is visible from the trails

2026 - a northeastern view from the top of the Overlook trail

2026 - another northeastern view
further down the same trail

2026 - no sumac looking west up into the prairie

 

Big thanks go out to the Winona County staff, Kevin O'Brien, the Friends of Apple Blossom Overlook park, Anne Morse and the Winona County Parks and Environmental Advisory Committee for the foresight and hard work and planning to bring this project to its curretn point!

Additional posts on Apple Blossom Overlook Park:

• Apple Blossom Viewshed Restoration Work, January 26, 2026
• Apple Blossom Overlook (MN) Park, January 17, 2024

Images, unless noted - Marge Loch-Wouters

Naturalist's Corner - Firefly Time

It's the height of the firefly season. What's the scoop on these insects and their flickering, flitting flight paths - and how can we ensure that they remain an annual summer delight?  I bring together two like-minded takes on this -one from a naturalist and one from a conservation organization for the skinny on fireflies.

Pamela Miller is a wonderful MN Master Naturalist volunteer at Frontenac State Park Association. She is a font of information on fungi, prairies and so much about our natural world. In fact you can join a fungi hike guided by Pam at 11:00 am on Saturday, July 18 at Frontenac State Park.  Pam is anlso editor of the Frontenac State Park Association's newsletter. Each month the newsletter is full of interesting science articles and observations, updates on the park, events, poems and pictures of the natural abundance at the state park. I was delighted to see an article in the July edition on fireflies which are having their moment in the evening and night and thought you'd enjoy it. 

Those Little Lights in the Summer Dusk

Pamela Miller  

Frontenac State Park Association Newsletter, July, 2026.

Insects are vital to life on Earth, but we, in our human Umwelt (a German word meaning the world as it is perceived by a particular organism), appreciate some more than others. Along with butterflies, dragonflies and (real) ladybugs, fireflies, which emerge in June and blink through July, delight us.

What’s going on there? Entomologists tell us that the flying males use their abdomen lights to attract females nestled in the vegetation below. If the female likes what she sees, she responds with her own light, and mating commences. According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Minnesota is home to many native species of fireflies (family Lampyridae – get it? lamps!). Those that fly at dusk flash yellow, while those active in the dark glow green. Watching — and perhaps chasing — fireflies is a wonderful way to help children discover beauty in nature.

But fireflies are under a grave threat from habitat loss and light pollution. Ways to help them thrive? Leave leaf litter in your yard in the fall. Plant native plants. And turn off your outdoor lights at night.

Recently Lights Out Wisconsin, a coalition of Wisconsin conservation groups and dark sky organizations working together to reduce the impacts of light pollution on people, wildlife and the night sky, put out an important press release. I am so happy to include their piece on fireflies as well and the importance of our human interactions needed to keep the glow going.

Turn down the lights to turn up the glow!

Lights Out Wisconsin press release June 12, 2026

 Peak firefly season in Wisconsin runs from mid-June through late July, but many species can be seen from May through the end of August.

Lights Out Wisconsin is urging everyone to turn off or dim non-essential outdoor lights and close window shades from sunset to sunrise to help fireflies communicate and reproduce.

For many of us, fireflies are a cherished part of summer. Unfortunately, many species are declining, and it is estimated that at least 14% of firefly species are threatened. Habitat loss, light pollution, and pesticide use are considered some of the greatest threats to firefly populations.

One of the most immediate ways you can help is by reducing artificial light at night. Fireflies use flashing signals to communicate and find mates, but outdoor lighting can obscure these signals, making it harder for fireflies to reproduce successfully. Turning off non-essential outdoor lights and reducing nighttime brightness can help ensure their signals are seen.

Other ways to support fireflies:

• Leaving the leaves: Fireflies spend much of their lives in leaf litter and soil, leaving some leaves and natural debris provides important habitat for developing fireflies.
• Avoiding pesticides: Pesticides can harm fireflies directly and limit the availability of other invertebrates they depend on for food.
• Keeping some natural areas in your yard: Native plants, and less-managed areas provide shelter and habitat throughout the firefly life cycle.

Learn more on the Lights Out Wisconsin website.

Driftless Flooding

Beaver Creek Valley State Park creek July 2, 2026.
The park is currently closed
Image - Minnesota State Parks and Trails

The northeast Iowa, southwest Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota region has had a number of heavy, slowly moving storms over the past three days with significant acumulated rainfall amounts (4-10 inches). 

Creeks, streams and rivers have topped their banks throughout the region. Both low-lying and bluffside fields, roads, bridges and trails in some community, county and state parks have suffered damage or been partially or fully washed out.

More heavy rain and storms are predicted through Friday and possibly into Saturday.

Be sure to check ahead for park and trail closures on park websites before going through with your holiday hiking plans. And be safe out there.

Nature Sneak Peak - July 2026

July hiking and nature observations are always a treat, despite the heat and humidity. Wetlands, woods and prairies all have interesting plants and wildlife to find.


Like the blooms on the common milkweed on the left, found widely throughout the Driftless area, both we and wildlife are attracted to the flowers of so many plants.

Here are a few July highlights to keep your eyes out for on the trails.

Prairies

Rainblow of Blooms - the prairies are bursting with colorful flowers this month

• Pink - Deptford pinks and purple poppy mallows have an almost neon brilliance

  

  Tiny Deptford pink

• Yellow - prairie coreopsis, black and brown-eyed Susans, sunflowers, evening primrose, cinquefoils, and partridge pea are just a few of the yellow flowers you'll see this month
• Orange - butterfly weed is always a star, not just for its flowers but also for the pollinators it attracts
• Blue/purple - lobelia, purple prairie clover, harebells, wild bergamot, hoary verbena
• White - false boneset, yarrow, white prarie clover, spotted bee balm
• Gray - Leadplant - also once known as "devil’s shoelaces" because of its deep taproot that can be as long as 15 feet which made it difficult for farmers to plow under - is a sure sign of a healthy prairie The white hair on its leaves gives it a downy appearance. It has just started it's brief blooming period so don't miss it.

Plus keep your eye out for the towering flowers and grasses - yellow cup plant and compassplant, pink Joe-Pye weed and common milkweed, and the greens of big bluestem, indiangrass and Canada wildrye

Want to learn more about the above flowers? Stop by Minnesota Wildflowers webpage or Online Virtual Flora of Wisconsin.

White-faced meadowhawk dragonfly

Damselflies and dragonflies are whirring around the prairie. These tiny predators are great mosquito hunters. Wisconsin alone has over 160 types of these onodates. One's time in the prairie can be well-spent quietly observing and identifying these busy insects that sometimes rest perched on leaves, grasses and flowers long enough for you to get a photo!

Bumblebees - With the increasing blooms, bumblebees and butterflies are beginning their pollinating, foraging and nectaring. Plump young queen bumblebees (gynes) are less in evidence as their first hatched smaller female workers are taking over the foraging and brooding tasks. The queens then devote their life to egg-laying in the nest. 

Wetlands and Woods

Jewelweed aka touch-me-nots, will begin to flower

Jewelweed

 this month, especially in wetlands and in damp, partially-shaded woods. Their arresting yellow and orange horn-shaped flowers continue blooming into August. Look for their seedpods - when ripe, the seeds explode out at a touch. They are a favorite when hiking with kids. 

Birds and Birdsong - with their young raised, birdsong that marks territory starts to decrease in frequency. One exception is the common yellowthroat’s “witchity, witchity, witchity” song heard in prairies, marshes and woodlands. This warbler is one of my favorites - perhaps because it’s season-long singing was long enough for me to learn it!

Mushrooms and Fungi - this is the month that fungi begin to fruit in earnest. puffballs, boletes, chantarelles, lobster mushrooms, chicken of the woods are just a few of the types of mushrooms you may find on the trails. Jelly and coral fungi are also much in evidence. With their varying colors and unique shapes, they are a delight to spot and marvel over. As always, do not forage any mushroom unless you are absolutely sure what it is and that it is edible.

Leadplant in bloom
Great River Bluff State Park MN

No matter where you go this month, be curious. Take some extra time to look and see what you can see along the trail. You’ll be delighted!

Images - Marge Loch-Wouters

You can read my quarterly column on seasonal hiking suggestions in Inspire(d) Driftless Magazine available online or pick up a free copy at businesses and organizations around the Driftless areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.

I Spy on the Trails - June 16-30, 2026

Apple Blossom Overlook Park, MN

The last two weeks of the month presented many days of classic June weather with a slight harkening back to cooler early spring temps. Sunny days and temps in the 70s were much in evidence with some rain and storms around the Driftless and cooler overnight temps. Mosquito numbers and humidity were relatively low which made those two weeks especially hike-worthy! The very last few days brought unwelcome 90s and high humidity. Ah, the weather vicissitudes.

The woods have given over to ferns and fungi with only a few flowering plants like avens and northern bedstraw brightening the shaded trails. That shade will be welcome on coming hot days but the colorful flower action is elsewhere in the prairies and fields.

Prairies are awash in color

Prairies are putting on their spectacular summer show, with one stunning flower display after another. Dominating right now are the purple blues of Ohio spiderworts, blue hoary vervain and flowering leadplants and the whites of flowering spurge, prairie fleabane, foxglove beardtongue, wild indigo and tall thimbleweed. Pops of orange butterfly weed and the gray-green leaves of leadplant and mountain mint are much in evidence as well. The bright pinks of prairie roses and Deptford pinks are everywhere. The yellows of sunflowers and Black-eyed Susans are starting to bloom as well. 

Bumblebee queens and now, more commonly, female workers, butterflies, moths, dragonflies and damselflies are nectoring, pollinating, foraging and preying on the blossoms and in the skies.  One's time in the prairie can be well-spent quietly observing and identifying these busy insects around the flowers. 

I hope you get a chance to head out and enjoy all that nature brings us in the summer. There is so much to see in the busy prairie on hikes. Stop here for a list of Driftless prairie hiking suggestions to try.

Plant Observations
Flowering:

• anemone, candle

  

  Tall cinquefoil

• alyssum, hoary
• avens, white
• beardtongue, foxglove
• bedstraw, northern 
• black-eyed Susan
• cinquefoil, sulfur
• cinquefoil, tall
• clover, white prairie
• columbine
• compassplant
• coneflower, purple
• coreopsis, prairie
• daisy, oxeye
• Deptford pink
• fern, interrupted
• fern, spinulose wood
• fleabane, daisy
• fleabane, prairie
• four o’clock

  

  Four o'clock

  
  
• harebell
• hawksbeard, narrowleaf
• indigo, wild white
• grass, bottle brush
• grass, Canada wildrye
• grass, junegrass
  
• grass, smooth brome
• hawksbeard, narrowleaf
• indigo, wild white
• Leadplant 
• meadow rue, purple
• milkweed, butterfly weed
• milkweed, clasping
• milkweed, common
• motherwort

  

  Tall thimbleweed

  
  
• mountain mint, Virginia
• mullein
• nightshade, bittersweet
• plantain, wooly
• puccoon, Carolina
• raspberry, black
• rose, prairie
• sedge, troublesome
• sorrel, sheep
• spiderwort, Ohio
• spurge, flowering
• spurge, leafy
• sunflower, false
• thimbleweed, tall
• thistle, musk
• verbena, hoary
• wild quinine
• woodsorrel, slender yellowleaf
• yarrow

Sprouting/greened/budded:

• bergamot, wild
• blazing star, rough
  

  

  Rattlesnake master bud

• boneset, false
• coneflower, gray-headed
• cup plant
• goldenrods
• grass, big bluestem
• grass, little bluestem
• prairie clover, purple
• prairie clover, white
• prairie coreopsis
• rattlesnake master
• roundhead bushclover
• sweet Joe-Pye weed

Past bloom:

• false Solomon's seal
• rockcress, tower

Fungi/Moss/Lichen

Leathery-veiled bolete mushroom

• fungi, scarlet elfin cup
• moss, woodsy thyme-
• mushroom, leathery-veiled bolete

Wildlife Observations (seen/heard/detected)

Birds: 

• blackbird, red-winged
• blue jay
• cardinal, northern
• cedar waxwing
• chickadee, black-capped
• cowbird, brown-headed

  

  Can you spot the indigo bunting?

  
  
• crow
• dickcissel 
• finch, house
• flycatcher, willow
• goldfinch
• grosbeak, rose-breasted
• indigo bunting
• meadowlark, western
• kingbird, eastern
• mourning dove
• nuthatch, white-breasted
• ovenbird
• redstart, American
• robin, American
• sparrow, chipping
• sparrow, clay-colored 
• sparrow, field
• sparrow, Henslow’s

  

  Northern yellow warbler

  
  
• sparrow, house
• sparrow, song
• sparrow, Vesper
• swallow, barn
• swallow, northern rough-winged
• swallow, tree
• tufted titmouse
• vireo, Bell’s
• vireo, eastern warbling
• vireo, red-eyed
• warbler, northern yellow
• wild turkey
• wood-pewee, eastern
• wood thrush
• woodpecker, downy
• woodpecker, hairy
• woodpecker, red-bellies
• wren, northern house
• yellowthroat, common 

Insects/arachnids: 

• beetle, American rose chafer

  

  Twelve-spotted skimmer

• beetle, flat-headed baldycypress sapwood
• bumblebee, black and gold
• bumblebee, brown-belted
• bumblebee, common eastern
• bumblebee, lemon cuckoo
• bumblebee, two-spotted
• butterfly, gorgone checkerspot
• butterfly, great spangled fritillary 
• butterfly, Monarch
• butterfly, small white
• butterfly, sulfur,  orange

  

  Brown-belted bumblee on
  common mullein

  
  
• butterfly, sulfur, yellow
• butterfly, summer azure
• damselfly, bluet
• damselfly, stream bluet
• dragonfly, eastern amberwing
• dragonfly, four-spotted skimmer
• dragonfly, Halloween pennant
• dragonfly, twelve-spotted skimmer
• dragonfly, white-faced meadowhawk
• dragonfly, widow skimmer
• honeybee, western
• grasshopper, two-spotted
• moth, bent wing owlet

What are YOU seeing on your hikes?

Two weeks of hikes
Hikes below in colored, bold type or underlined have links to previous posts OR descriptions and/or location of the trails found online.

Holland Sand Prairie, Holman WI (3); Upper Mississippi National Wildlife & Fish Refuge Visitor's Center, Brice Prairie WI; Apple Blossom Overlook Park, Winona County, MN (2); Upper Hixon Forest, La Crosse WI; urban Chicago hiking, Chicago IL

Commom milkweed flowers inviting pollinators in!

Images, unless noted - Marge Loch-Wouters

The "I Spy on the Trails" column is a phenology (the study of seasonal changes in plants and animals) journal to chronicle year-round the weather, plant life and wildlife I observe while hiking. It is very useful in helping me compare observations from year-to-year. The column is published monthly from September through April and then twice-a-month from May through August when warm weather brings the natural world back to vibrant life.

Deptford pink
Image - Sue Knopf

You can read my quarterly column on seasonal hiking suggestions in Inspire(d) Driftless Magazine available online or pick up a free copy at businesses and organizations around the Driftless areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Tall cinquefoil stands sentry along the trail
US Fish & Wildlife Visitor's Center, Brice Prairie