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| Subtle early June prairie colors |
The call of the tame landscape was high on my priority list - using the pleasant days for planting, mulching the wildflower beds surrounding the house and weeding the many persistent woods-weeds that love our yard as much as the woods next to us.
That left less time on the trails than I like. The addition of a new and persistent pain in one foot meant less bluff hiking for me, more rest for the foot and doctor appointments to see if this is temporary or a new body stage as I age. I picked ambling, flatter trails that were less painful and full of prairie flowers so I wasn't bereft of the natural world though. But you'll note fewer observations.
One benefit of less motion is more reading - especially of some fascinating books on the natural world. Watch for a review or two coming up in the next month or so!
Finally one of my absolute highlights of this (and many a) year was walking through the "Prairie Dreams: A Trail of Quilts" quilt display along a prairie trail loop at Frontenac State Park on Saturday, June 13. This two-year project by the amazing volunteers in the Frontenac State Park Association was funded through a Minnesota Arts Board grant. Over 120 quilters participated by designing quilts around the theme of prairies. Wandering along the trail with quilt and nature enthusiasts admiring the quilts, the pollinators and the flowers on this perfect June day was just the best.
To see photos and information on the quilters, the quilts, and a few reflections written by naturalists, please stop here and here.
The pictures below juxtaposing nature and art on the quilt trail capture the wonder of what happened!
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| A fawn makes an unexpected crossing Image- Carrie Cronin |
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| An American lady butterfly on a quilt designed by Sandy Evans at the Prairie Dreams event |
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| Can you spot the butterfly on this larger photo of the quilt? Image - Leslie Hall |
Plant Observations
Flowering:
- alexander, golden
- alyssum, hoary
- anemone, candle
- beardtongue, foxglove
- beardtongue large
Large-flowered beartongue - butterfly milkweed
- camus, death
- cinquefoil, tall
- clover, sweet yellow
- columbine
- Deptford pink
- fern, bristly bladder
- fern, bulblet bladder
- fern, oak
- grass, prairie junegrass
- grass, smooth brome
- grass, porcupine
- grass, purple lovegrass
- grass, Scribner's panicgrass
Porcupine grass - grass, rough bent
- ground cherry, Virginia
- groundsel, prairie
- harebell
- hawksbeard, narrowleaf
- indigo, wild
- jack-in-the-pulpit
- leafcup, small-flowered
- milkweed, clasping
- milkweed, common
- milkwort, racemed
- plantain, wooly
- puccoon, Carolina
- puccoon, hoary
- rockcress, lyreleaf
- rose, prairie
Prairie rose - Solomon's seal, false
- Solomon's seal, smooth
- sorrel, sheep
- spiderwort, Ohio
- spurge, flowering
- thimbleweed, Canada
- thimbleweed, tall
- thistle, nodding
- woodsorrel, slender yellow
- yarrow
Sprouting/greened/budded:
- bergamot, wild
- boneset, false
- clover, purple prairie
- clover, white prairie
- compass plant
- coneflower, gray-headed
Goat's rue bud - coneflower, purple
- coreopsis, prairie
- Culver's root
- cupplant
- fleabane, prairie
- four-o-clock
- goat's rue
- goldenrods
- grass, bluestem, big
- grass, bluestem, little
- leadplant
- quinine, wild
- rattlesnake master
- roundheaded bushclover
- sage, white
- wormwood, field
Past bloom:
- frostweed, Canada
- lupine, wild
- prairie smoke
- ginger, wild
- prairie blue-eyed grass
- puccoon, hoary
Fungi/Moss/Lichen:
- moss, twisted
- blackbird, red-winged
Dickcissel - blackbird, yellow-headed
- blue jay
- bluebird, eastern
- cardinal
- catbird, gray
- cedar waxwing
- chickadee, black-capped
- chimney swift
- cowbird, brown-headed
- crow
- dickcissel
- finch, house
- flycatcher, great-crested
- flycatcher, willow
- goldfinch, American
- grosbeak, rose-breasted
- indigo bunting
- killdeer
- kingbird, eastern
- meadowlark, eastern
- mourning dove,
- oriole, Baltimore
- pewee, eastern wood
Mourning dove eggs after I accidentally
flushed her off her nest - redstart, American
- robin, American
- sparrow, clay-colored
- sparrow, field
- sparrow, Henslow's
- sparrow, house
- sparrow, song
- sparrow, vesper
- starling
- swallow, tree
- titmouse, tufted
- thrasher, brown
- vireo, Bell's
- vireo, eastern warbling
- vireo, red-eyed
- warbler, northern yellow
- warbler, Tennessee
- woodpecker, downy
- woodpecker, hairy
- wren, Carolina
- wren, house
- yellowthroat
- fawn
- bumblebee, American
Twelve-spotted skipper - bumblebee, common eastern
- butterfly, American lady
- butterfly, bronze, copper
- butterfly, Monarch
- butterfly, spangled fritillary
- butterfly, tiger swallowtail
- dragonfly, Halloween pennant
- dragonfly, twelve-spotted skipper
- dragonfly, widow skimmer
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| Great spangled fritillary on butterfly weed |
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 (2); Community Prairie and Butterfly Garden, Decorah, IA; Trout Run Trail, Decorah, IA; Upper Mississippi National Wildlife & Fish Refuge Visitor's Center, Brice Prairie WI (2); Frontenac State Park, Frontenac MN
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| Deptford pink |
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| American bumblebee on a nodding thistle |
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