May 10, 2023

May flowers

The cooler weather in April put many of the flowers in the woods behind schedule.  It is now a month since Easter and Pasque (French for Easter) flowers are blooming and about at their maximum.  They are all over the hillside below airplane hill and over at Peichl's Hill.

Bloodroots are all over in the woods now and will be gone soon.  The picture above in the title is of a group of bloodroots.  If you find one break its flower stem and notice the red liquid in the stem.  No it is not only in the root!  Earlier this week I saw two mining bees fighting on a bloodroot flower.  By the way it is uncommon to see any bees on a bloodroot and even more uncommon to see them interacting with another bee.

By the way it is illegal to pick or dig up flowers or any plants in a state park.  It is legal to pick fruit and mushrooms for yourself in a park but not to sell in a business.

Hepaticas are a delicate spring flower that my family called mayflowers, even though they usually came in April.  I was afraid that the work along highway 4 in which a crew took out a bunch of trees and crushed one bed of hepaticas with their equipment, would harm their existance in the park.  It turns out we have discovered several more areas closer to the south bridge that has lots of them this year.  Hepaticas often come out shortly after the snow melts.

Another flower that comes out soon after the snow melts but is much less common is the snow trillium.  This very small flower is less than 2 inches tall.  I have located a hillside several miles from the park that is covered with them.  I found this hillside several years ago.  I reported it on iNaturalist and they hid its location.  They do this so people don't poach rare species for their garden.   I was sent a message on the app from a person with the DNR that tracks rare species for the exact location so they could put it on their list of locations of this species.  This year I went to this location as the snow was melting on this hillside.  I found one plant blooming with snow all around it.  Two days later the snow was all melted (after the early hot weather) and the whole hillside was covered with blooming snow trilliums.  Notice the three petals on the flowers and the three leaves on each plant (tri means three).

Two bight yellow flowers are blooming in different parts of the park.  Marsh marigolds are found in wet areas near the south bridge on the east side of the creek.  They are blooming now and will for a couple weeks and be done for the year.  Dandelions are found all over the park and bloom all summer and into the fall.  They just started blooming in the last week.  Notice there are flower flies on both plants.  They help pollinate these plants along with bees.

Spring flowers are very diverse in the blooms they produce.  Jack in the pulpit are very unusual in that the flower is green like the leaves of the plant.  Lift the flap that covers jack inside and see 'him'.  We used to rub the base of the flower between our fingers around jack and 'make him preach to us'.

Dutchman's breeches are members of the bleeding heart family but instead of having heart shaped flowers they have upside down pants or breeches for flowers. 

False rue anemone is found in patches all around the camping area and across the creek.  Their white flowers are blooming prolifically right now.

Birds in the Park

 I know of 7 types of woodpeckers that are in the park at different times during the year.  Some migrate south in the winter and some stay all winter.  Recently I saw and got nice pictures of three of the most rare ones.  I have always liked the name, yellow-bellied sapsucker.  This one was making its presence known by pecking on a metal park sign.  I remember red-headed woodpeckers in the woods when I was young.  They are rarer now and I have only seen one twice at Fort Ridgely.  Both times they were near the upper picnic shelter.  This one had a very bright red head.  I have seen pileated woodpeckers several times in the park but have never been able to get a picture of one.  They are the largest woodpecker and are as big as a crow.  The one in the picture below landed in a tree near us while we were hiking at Flandreau State Park in New Ulm recently.  It was nice enough to peck around on this tree for a while so I got several pictures of it. 

 The robin is the most common member of the thrush family.  The hermit thrush is a less common and slightly smaller member of this family.  A pretty member of the sparrow family is the white-throated sparrow.  It also has a splotch of yellow above its eye.

Walking through the park we often see big birds soaring around on air currents.  Eagles and hawks as well as vultures are familiar sights in the air, more than perched in trees or on telephone poles.  They are all called raptors or birds that swoop down for their prey.  Ospreys like to eat fish and are always found near water.  I saw my first one at Fort Ridgely a week or so ago.  We were by the small lake near the historical remains and it flew over, probably hoping for some fish in the lake.  It did not swoop in for any, so there must not have been any to get.  A more common raptor is the red-tailed hawk.  It is the most common hawk in this area.  Driving along many roads in Minnesota, you can often see them perching on telephone poles, waiting for some mouse or other small prey to get too far from shelter so they can swoop in and have some lunch.

Insects in the park

I have already shown many insects on flowers.  These are early ones that have survived the Minnesota winter by various means.  Bumblebees all die in the winter except the queens.  They survive by hibernating under leaf litter.  When they come out they have to find some flowers to get nectar from to have energy to find a good location for their new small hive, lay eggs, bring in nectar and pollen to feed the larva once hatched from the eggs and stay strong to lay more eggs for more worker bees.  Queens are usually bigger and fatter than normal worker bees.  I have seen seen queens searching around under logs and branches at Fort Ridgely for possible locations for their hive.  At home I saw a bumblebee queen searching around our house looking for holes in our foundation to make a home inside.  So far the only flowers I have seen bumble bees on are a hyacinth and a dandelion and got the picures below.  In past years we have seen queens getting some of their early food from a big patch of DUtchman's breeches on the trail up to the old primitive campground.

There have been small red admiral butterflies flying around in the woods at Fort Ridgely for several weeks now.  The picture below was taken on April 24. I have been seeing white and yellow butterflies also lately.  It was fun to see the yellow sulfur butterfly flying from Pasque flower to Pasque flower on sirplane hill several days ago.  Notice the long curved tube coming out of its mouth that it uses to suck out nectar from the flower.

I hope to see some of you this Saturday (May 13) at our 2 nature walks.  The walks at 10am and 1pm will be looking for birds and reporting how many of each kind that we see or hear on an App for the Big Day for Birds.