August 11, 2021
Prairie in Bloom
My wife and I regularly go for walks at Fort Ridgely. The prairie has been glorious in the last few weeks. Becky, my wife, described the scene as like a Monet painting. Not all parts of the prairie have this much blooming but we sure enjoy the parts that are. The first picture is looking toward the chalet from the hill at the north end of the valley. The other picture is closer up of the colorful flowers on the prairie west of the chalet.
Various colors of flowers are blooming, tall prairie grasses are growing up and forming a variety of seed pods at the top of their stalks and lots of insects including bees, wasps, flies, butterflies and moths, beetles, grasshoppers and dragonflies all are flying around from plant to plant. I will give some picture examples of some of these and then show some of the birds I have seen.
Prairie Flowers
With so many flowers blooming in different parts of the park, it is hard to decide what to include. These are my favorites.
First of all, 2 more types of milkweed are blooming now. Swamp milkweed flowers are similar color to common but are pointing up rather than hanging down in a large bunch. The leaves are more pointed.
Whorled milkweed is a much smaller plant. The flowers have the milkweed shape and are white. They also have pointed leaves but are much smaller than swamp milkweed.
Many monarch butterflies are flying around and if you look closely you can see some of their striped caterpillars eating the milkweed. I have found their caterpillars on common milkweed, butterfly weed and swamp milkweed. I have not seen them on whorled milkweed. The caterpillars only eat milkweeds of various types. Monarch butterflies feed on many flowers but lay their eggs only on milkweed so the tiny caterpillars have plenty to eat and can grow into huge caterpillars like the one shown. There are actually several other types besides these 4 types of milkweed. They can be found in Minnesota but I have never seen them at Fort Ridgely.
Beebalm or bergemot has been blooming the last month and you can see it easily in the general pictures of the prairie above. The unusual flower is light purple color and has lots of fronds radiating from the central cone. There are usually clumps of many stalks in each patch of beebalm. I have seen all different types of pollinators on beebalm, from the monarch butterfly in the picture to honey and bumblebees to very small sweat bees.
Anise hyssop is all over the prairie below the chalet on both sides. Its flowers are usually light blue but I have seen some white ones as well. The picture shows both colors. The flowers radiate out from the top of the stalks above the leaves. If you are not sure if it is hyssop, tear a leaf and smell it. It should have an anise smell if it is hyssop.
Small butterfly in a strange place
Walking on a prairie path we saw a pile of pretty fresh horse poop. There were 3 small butterflies flying around and landing on it. I have no idea what they saw in it. Flies lay their eggs in it but I have never heard of a butterfly being drawn to manure. They were a butterfly called common checkered-skipper. It was the first time I have seen this type of butterfly even though it is called common. They lay their eggs and caterpillars feed on mallow plants as well as hollyhocks and velvet leaf.
Prairie grasses
Prairies are famous for their grasses. There are many types that grow up and form their seeds at different times all summer. Grasses also form little flowers where the seed will form. These flowers are small and most do not need a pollinator to transfer their pollen. They are wind pollinated. One of the tallest and most common on prairies in Minnesota is big blue stem. It can be 6-8 feet tall. Notice the dark little flowers off to the sides. I am not sure why these were dark as most are usually yellow in color.
Canada wild rye is another tall grass. There are a few yellow flowers hanging from the place where the seeds will form.
Sideoats grama is a shorter grass and the seeds form on one side of the stalk. The flowers are no longer visible in the picture.
Indian grass is another tall grass. It is as tall as big bluestem and often seen side by side in the prairie. Notice again a few yellow flowers hanging from the seed forming area.
Switchgrass is also a tall prairie grass. Notice that this example is flowering too. Its flowers are orange-brown and look similar to other grasses I have shown. Its seeds are separated much more than other grasses. It was a candidate for use in ethanol production. It can be grown on land that cannot be used to grow corn and thus would save us from using a crop that can also be used for food.
Drought and recent rain
It had been a long time since there was any significant rain at Fort Ridgely until Friday night. Many trees were losing leaves and plants were not growing as tall as usual in many places. My rain gauge in Fairfax measured about 2 inches that night and about 0.5 inches Saturday and Sunday. Since it was so dry almost all of this rain was absorbed by the plants and the soil. Sunday we walked around in the park and it was not muddy and the creek was not raised hardly at all.
I have put all past Updates for the last 1 1/2 years on a website. They are a record of some of the wildlife in the park and their behavior for that time of year. Here is the link if you care to look ahead to what may be there to see during a time of year in question.
In the last update I showed a bad picture of a scarlet tanager bird. Since then I saw it and got some good pictures of one (maybe the same one). Here is one.
Lac Qui Parle Bioblitz
On Saturday July 17 I had the privilege of participating in the 2021 Tall Grass Prairie Bioblitz at the Lac Qui Parle State Park and Wildlife Management Areas. The idea was to educate the public and document with photos taken by people like me what biological species exist in different parts of the area. The two areas I went to, with groups each time, were a fen and a former island that had the lake around it drained so now is easier to get to. Both had not been explored much before then. Here are a couple pictures I took of things there. The first is of a clearwing hummingbird moth. It is about the size of a bumblebee. The second is a green bog orchid that we saw near the fen.
We sent our pictures to iNaturalist online where they could be documented and studied. So far 1432 observations have been sent in by 62 observers and 359 different species. An article giving more details about the bioblitz can be found at this link: https://www.wctrib.com/northland-outdoors/7122068-Magic-on-the-prairie?fbclid=IwAR1A9V-8XMZja98YddASYdJNByBsffu8JxqRzDqwvmTcrv8xSHChENpWSlM I am in one of the pictures found in it.