May 29, 2025

April and Mayflowers

The woods at Fort Ridgely have a huge variety of spring flowers. They come in all shapes and sizes.  Some are found all over the park and are easy to find when they are blooming. Others are somewhat rare and only found in one or only a couple small areas.  This year I found trout lilies for the first time in the park.  I know that they are abundant in some woods but had never seen any in the park until this spring.  Here are some of the ones I got in pictures. 

Most early wildflowers are in the woods before the leaves form on the trees. Here are a couple early prairie flowers found in certain meadows near the woods.

The white trout (or fawn) lily below is one of a group of them found this year not far from the bridge in the campgrounds. They are only 4 inches or less tall, not over a foot like many of the day lilies and other lilies in many people's gardens. A similar small lily of about the same size as our trout lily is very widely found in the forests of Montana. The yellow glacier lily is edible which our granddaughter let everyone know when we went for walks in areas where they were common in late April,

Two very common flowers that are found all over the park at this time:  blue phlox and Virginia waterleaf. Blue phlox are mostly found along the edges of woods but can also be found in areas where the trees are sparce. Virginia waterleaf plants are one of the earliest to come up in the spring in almost every area of the woods. They wait until late May to June to flower and bring many pollinators back to the woods to pollinate them.  The yellow flowers that are starting to bloom all over the prairies in the park is called golden alexander. It is very easily seen in the prairie by the chalet that was burnt earlier this spring. 

Baby Birds

As I mentioned in the last Update, a pair of house finches again made a nest in our wreath outside the front door of our house. The female laid 5 eggs and as you can see hatched all five. Both mom and dad were involved in feeding the developing young birds.  Now they have all fledged (flew away from the nest) but we see many finches coming to our feeders including the grape jelly one we put out for orioles.  It is fun to see the young birds flying around playing with each other like teenagers.

On April 12, Nancy Engel and her husband Steve brought 10 new bluebird houses that we had been awarded as a grant from the Minnesota Bluebird Recovery Program (BBRP). They are on the right in the picture below along with Arlon from the park, me and my neighbor Vaughn. Notice the new design for the houses between Arlon and Vaughn. We took out many of the old houses that were in poor places for bluebirds or were in poor condition and put up 8 of the 10 new houses.  2 were put up in horse campground area (across the bridge in the meadow), 4 on the north side of the upper picnic area and 2 near the Chalet (one pictured below).

Lots of bluebirds have come to Fort Ridgely this spring. Last week we met a birder from Hector with a camera with a big telephoto lens for getting pictures of birds, way up in trees or far away. She said Fort Ridgely was her favorite spot for bluebirds and had many good pictures of them from the cemetery area. 

Becky and I are tasked with monitoring the bluebird houses at Fort Ridgely and seeing how many bluebirds are raised in them. We did this last year with the old houses and were discouraged that we only saw one batch of 5 that made it to flying away in those boxes. We saw a number of boxes with blue eggs in them and a few that hatched and started to develop.  Probably the biggest problem last year was wrens.  They are a tiny bird but are very nasty to other birds and often take over their nests. Several houses we saw bluebird eggs in last year had their eggs thrown out by wrens and the nest taken over by them.  We saw several houses with hatched bluebirds taken over by wrens and we assume the babies killed.

Bluebirds make their nests with dried grass and wrens use twigs from trees to cover the top of their nests and have a small area at the bottom for their babies. Every time we saw twigs sticking out of a box, we knew a wren was inside. Many of the boxes that we took down in April had been used by wrens the previous year.  They like them in areas where there are trees present. Bluebirds prefer short grass areas like the cemetery but want their nests near a tree so the baby bluebirds can fly away to the safety of a tree, not the ground where they are more vulnerable to predators. With this in mind we placed the new boxes in areas where there is plenty of short grass and pointed the entrance hole toward a tree.

So far we have found bluebird eggs in 4 boxes. Two were in new boxes and two more were in old boxes that we did not take down. One old box had babies hatched and somewhat developed on May 22. Yesterday (May 27) we found that a wren had taken over the nest. No babies but lots of sticks where they had been. We hope that the babies were able to fledge before the wren claimed the box.  Another house on the prairie trail below the chalet we found shells of bluebird eggs below it and sticks inside. Below are two new boxes with 5 bluebird eggs in each.

Other birds besides wrens have taken over houses meant for the bluebirds. Below are the eggs of a tree swallow in one of our new houses and further down is the mom protecting the nest by sticking her head out. I have not figured out yet what bird was in the old box with feathers in with grass in the nest. The color of the eggs is different from the tree swallow as well as bluebird eggs.

News from PARK STAFF

“Park staff have had a busy spring with opening facilities and finishing projects.  We had a tree service come out this week and take down a number of hazardous trees and limbs, with park staff cleaning up dropped logs and branches.  A section of rotten siding is being repaired at the farmhouse, with the wheelchair access ramp also being replaced.  Our lower picnic shelter renovation is now complete, with new flooring, roof, chimney caps, wooden beams and electrical installed as well as tuck-pointing work done. 

“In the nature store, new park t-shirts and magnets will be available in the next few weeks.  We’ve opened up the direct trail from the southern trail bridge to airplane hill to horses, so horse riders now have a circular riding route on the east side of the creek.  Finally, we would like to remind visitors that ATVs/UTVs are not allowed on park roads or trails, and bicycles (regular or electric) are not allowed on trails.”

Interpretive Programs at the Park

Bird Listening, Watching and Photography June 7, 2025   10 -11:00 am and 1 - 2:00pm

Meet in the Chalet Parking Lot

Bird watching has become a hobby for many Americans. Many people feed them around their houses just to see the variety that inhabit their own area. Come seasoned birders and novices on a walk through the woods and prairie at Fort Ridgely. We will keep our eyes and ears open but also use binoculars, phone apps and cameras to help us observe and identify as many birds as possible. Fort Ridgely is a haven for all kinds of birds. It is not uncommon for the Merlin bird app to hear 20+ species on a walk.  We may be able to see some baby bluebirds, in the houses for them in the park, (8 new ones installed this year). Volunteer naturalist and retired science teacher Bix Baker will lead the walks.