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| Tall thimbleweed |
The big news these past two weeks was the early heat. While temperatures started on the cool side, our early Memorial Day brought us 80's to a surprise 90F to herald in the summer season. Enough early rain fell to keep forests moist although by the end of these two weeks, its spotty nature meant early dryness.
I spent part of last week in northern Wisconsin in the Hayward/Cable area. Once again, I got to re-experience emergent spring with all the early flowers and plant life as well as animal life like fawns. Minnesota and Wisconsin both experienced high songbird migrations during those four days. Each morning a new group of warblers greeted us at our cabin and on our hikes as they arrived to nest or continued their migration north. Both the birds and the flora were gobsmackingly wonderful.
In the Driftless, prairies are bursting with flowers as the forests begin to hand over the baton of stunning showstoppers to the sunny drier prairies and the plants that thrive in those conditions. The lupines, puccoons, prairie smoke and birdfoot violets were out in force. Many of their rare companions like the death camus, indian paintcup, blue-eyed prarie grass are beginning - or almost ready - to start their bloom. Next month promises more stunners.
Plant Observations
Flowering:
- alyssum, hoary
- anemone, rue
- bastard toadflax
- blackberry
- blacksnakeroot, clustered
Canada frostweed - buttercup, bristly
- buttercup, little-leaf
- Canada frostweed
- cinquefoil, common
- columbine
- dewberry, northern
- fern, bulblet bladderfern
- fern, interrupted
- fern, lady
- fern, New York
- fern, northern maidenhair
- fern, ostrich
- fern, rockcap
- fern, sensitive
- fern, spinulose woodfern
- fleabane, daisy
- geranium, wild
- ginger, wild
- golden Alexander
- grass, orchard
- groundsel, prairie
- harebell
- hawkweed, orange
- Indian paintcup
- lily of the valley, false starry
- lupine, wild
- New Jersey tea
- orchis, showy
- phlox, downy
- plantain, Robin’s
- prairie blue-eyed grass
- prairie Junegrass
- prairie smoke
- puccoon, Carolina (hairy)
Slender yellow woodsorrel - puccoon, fringed
- puccoon, hoary
- rockcress, hairy
- rockcress, lyreleaf
- rockcress, tower
- rose, prairie
- rose, smooth
- sandwort, bluntleaf
- Scribner’s obscuregrass
- sedge, eastern star
- sedge, oval-leaf
- sedge, white bear
- sheep sorrel
- smooth brome
- spiderwort, Ohio
- Solomon’s seal, false
- spurge, leafy
- sweet root, long style (aniseroot)
- thimbleweed, tall
- two-leaf miterwort (bishop’s cap)
- violet, birdfoot
- waterleaf, great
- waterleaf, Virginia
- wild strawberry
- wintercress
- wood betony
- woodsorrel, slender yellow
- yarrow
- anemone, candle
Leadplant bud - butterfly weed
- camus, mountain death
- cinquefoil, sulfur
- compass plant
- coneflowers, purple and gray-headed
- coreopsis, prairie
- cup plant
- goldenrods
- greenbriar, bristly
- Indian hemp
- leadplant
- milkweed, common
- milkwort, racemed
- penstamon, large bearded
- plantain, wooly
- primrose, common evening
- pussytoes, plantain
- rattlesnake master
- rose, prairie
- Solomon's seal, smooth
- verbena, hoary
- bellwort, large-leaved
- false starry lily of the valley
- mayapple
- pussytoes, field
- fungi, Dryad's saddle
- Mushroom, inky caps
- mushroon, oyster
- mushroom, golden oyster
- blackbird, red-winged
- blue jay
- bluebird, eastern
- bobolink
- cardinal, northern
- Canada goose
- catbird, gray
- cedar waxwing
- chickadee, black-capped
- cowbird, brown-headed
- crane, sandhill
- dickcissel
- eagle, bald (and unfledged juvenile)
- flycatcher, blue-gray
- flycatcher, great-crested
- flycatcher, least
- flycatcher, Willow
- flycatcher, yellow-bellied
- goldfinch
- grackle
- grosbeak, blue
- grosbeak, rose-breasted
Dickcissel - indigo bunting
- killdeer
- kingbird, eastern
- kingfisher, belted
- meadowlark, eastern
- nuthatch, white breasted
- oriole, Baltimore
- ovenbird
- redstart, American
- robin, American
- scarlet tanager
- sparrow, clay-colored
- sparrow, field
- sparrow, grasshopper
- sparrow, house
- sparrow, Savannah
- sparrow, song
- sparrow, white-throated
- starling, European
- swallow, cliff
- swallow, vesper
- thrasher, brown
Indigo bunting
Image - Kris Lawson - thrush, hermit
- thrush, wood
- titmouse, tufted
- towhee, eastern
- tufted titmouse
- veery
- vireo, Bell's
- vireo, eastern warbling
- vireo, red-eyed
- vireo, yellow-throated
- warbler, black-and-white,
- warbler, blackpoll
- warbler, blue-winged
- warbler, chestnut-sided
- warbler, Magnolia
- warbler, Nashville
- warbler, northern yellow
- warbler, Prothonotary
- warbler, yellow-rumped
- wood-pewee, eastern
- woodpecker, hairy
- woodpecker, pileated
- woodpecker, red-bellied
- wren, northern house
- yellowthroat
- doe with fawn
- snake, garter
- turtle, snapping
- bumblebee, queen, brown-belted
Viceroy butterfly - bumblebee, queen, common eastern
- butterfly, American copper
- butterfly, blue azure
- butterfly, comma
- butterfly, tiger swallowtail
- butterfly, Viceroy
- damselfly, eastern forktail
- damselfly, tule bluet
- dragonfly, common whitetail
- dragonfly, dusky clubtail,
- dragonfly, horned clubtail
- dragonfly, dusky clubtail
- anemone, wood
Blue bead lily (clintonia) - forget-me-not
- fern, bracken
- fern, lady
- fern, long beech
- fern, oak
- fern, intermadiate wood
- fern, interrupted
- gaywings
- hepatica, roundleaf
- jack-in-the-oulpit
- lily, blue bead
- lily, straw
- marigold marsh
- springbeauty
- starflower
- strawberry, barren
- strawberry, wild
- trillium
- trillium, nodding (nodding wakerobin)
- violet, blue
- violet, downy yellow
- wild ginger
- betony, wood
- blue cohosh
- buttercup, little-leaf
- Canada mayflower
- columbine
- partridge berry
- Solomon's seal, false
- Solomon's seal, hairy
- Solomon's seal, smooth
- blackbird, red-winged
- chickadee, black-capped
- duck, mallard
- flycatcher, least
- goldfinch
- goose, Canada
- grosbeak, rose-breasted
Northern parula
Image - Ryan Schaun, Merlin Bird ID - heron, great blue
- hawk, broad-winged
- loon
- nuthatch, red-breasted
- nuthatch, white-breasted
- ovenbird
- parula, northern
- phoebe, eastern
- redstart, American
- robin, American
- sapsucker, yellow-bellied
- sparrow, chipping
- sparrow, song
- thrush, hermit
- towhee, eastern
- vireo, red-eyed
- vireo, yellow-throated
- warbler, black-and-white
- warbler, black-thoated blue
- warbler, black-throated green
- warbler, blackburnian
- warbler, chestnut-sided
- warbler, mourning
- warbler, Nashville
- warbler, northern yellow
- warbler, palm
- warbler, yellow-rumped
- warbler, Wilson's
- woodpecker, hairy
- woodpecker, red-bellied
- yellow-bellied sapsucker
- yellowthroat
- deer and nursing fawn
- bumblebee, queen, common eastern
- butterfly, northern azure
- spring peepers
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| Bastard toad-flax |
A month of hikes
Hikes below in colored, bold type or underlined have links to previous posts OR descriptions/location of the trails found online.
Holland Sand Prairie, Holman WI (2); Wayside WanderingsPlay Area/Nature Trails, Cable WI; Morgan Falls/St Peter's Dome, Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, WI; South Park, Houston MN; Beaver Creek Valley State Park, Caledonia MN; McGilvray’s Seven Bridges, New Amsterdam, WI; Hixon Forest, La Crosse, WI; Apple Blossom Overlook Park, Winona County, MN
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.
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| In the ferns Image - Kris Lawson |
Images, unless noted - Marge Loch-Wouters
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