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| Apple Blossom Overlook Park, MN |
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.
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| Prairies are awash in color |
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
- 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
- false Solomon's seal
- rockcress, tower
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| Leathery-veiled bolete mushroom |
- fungi, scarlet elfin cup
- moss, woodsy thyme-
- mushroom, leathery-veiled bolete
- 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
- 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
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| 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.
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| Deptford pink Image - Sue Knopf |
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| Tall cinquefoil stands sentry along the trail US Fish & Wildlife Visitor's Center, Brice Prairie |
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