I Spy on the Trails - Week of May 14, 2023

Fringed puccoons on our way up the goat prairie'
Image - Diane Court

Wildfires in Canada brought smoky skies and haze down into MN for parts of this week.  Plenty of moisture and sun has brought out explosive plant growth. The river continues to creep downward from its flood crest but is still high and running fast.

It was an amazing week of hikes - from wetlands to blufflands to heading up into a steep goat prairie with a riot of prairie wildflowers far different from the other hikes this week. The challenging 45° hike up the bluff was worth the effort! To top it off the week - a morning of observing a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biologists’ Banding Demonstration Team  doing bird banding in a local blufflands park brought new birds to my attention.

Wildflowers

Indian paintbrush
Image - Marge Loch-Wouters

• Morel mushrooms (ok, not a wildflower but pretty wild nevertheless!)
• Showy orchid (flowering)
• Indian paintbrush (flowering)
• Cream wild indigo (flowering)
• Hoary puccoon (flowering)
• Fringed puccoon (flowering)
• Blue eyed grass (flowering)
• Violet wood-sorrel
• Prairie ragwort (flowering)
• Robin's fleabane
• Bastard toadflax (flowering)
• Yellow star grass (flowering)
• Starry amaryllis (flowering)
• Wood betony (flowering)

Cream wild Indigo
Image - Marge Loch-Wouters

• Bird's foot violet (flowering)
• Oyster mushrooms
• May apple (flowering)
• Golden alexander (flowering)
• Dryad's saddle
• Solomon's seal
• Starry false solomon's seal (flowering))
• Smooth rockcress
• Lyreleaf rockcress
• Trillium
• Field wormwood
• Red baneberry (flowering)
• Interruped fern
• Lady Fern

• Bracken fern
• Maidenhair fern
• Sensitive fern
• Ostrich fern
• Downy yellow violet
• Chokecherry (flowering)
• Leafy spurge (flowering)
• Meadow rue
• Wood anemone
• Hoary puccoon
• Sand cherry (flowering)
• Wild ginger
• Columbine (flowering)
• Bellwort (flowering)

Wildlife (seen/heard)

• Timber rattler
• Orange gorgone checkerspot butterfly 
• Rose-breasted grosbeak
• Prothonotary warbler
• Magnolia warbler
• Swainson's thrush
• Eastern wood peewee
• Tennessee warbler
• Black-and-white warbler
• Yellow Warbler
• Magnolia warbler
• American redstart

Timber rattler
Image - Marge Loch-Wouters

• Indigo bunting
• Song sparrow, Goldfinch
• Blue-gray gnatcatcher
• Eastern Towhee
• Red-belied woodpecker
• Northern waterthrush
• Yellow-throated vireo
• Warbling vireo
• Red-eyed vireo
• Tufted titmouse
• Cardinal
• Great crested flycatcher
• Cowbird
• Catbird
• Bluejay
• Northern rough-winged swallow

What are YOU noticing on your hikes?

This week's hike's: Lytle's Landing trailhead, Great River Trail (WI); Sugar Loaf Bluff (MN); Wildwood Trail (MN); Rush Creek State Natural Area (WI), Vetsch Park (MN)

Banded Magnolia Warbler
Image - Marge Loch-Wouters