September 6,  2025

Monarchs Galore

On August 25 Becky and I went for a walk at Fort Ridgely.  We parked in the parking lot near the biking trail's end on the east side of the park. There were lots of monarch butterflies. They especially were landing on blazing star (liatris).  I have never seen so many monarchs on one plant of any other species. We walked along the prairie trail from airplane hill to the other lookout and came over the little ridge leading to the second overlook and there ahead of us must have been 20 monarchs flitting around. I think these were on their trip from Canada or northern Minnesota on their way to Mexico.  Blazing star is a good plant to rest on for a while and fuel up with nectar for the next leg of their trip south. 

In the fall they go to all plants in bloom to get pollen and nectar to bulk up and get fuel for the first leg of their journey south. Here are a few of the plants we saw them  on.

Mushrooms in Horse Campground's Woods

Becky and I have been over to the horse campgrounds more this year as we put 2 bluebird houses on the other side of the creek in the meadow along the path there.  It took a while for a bluebird to find them but in July a bluebird laid 5 eggs in one of the houses. For those of you that are not familiar with the horse campground, it is a separate part of the park that is a mile or two north from the main part of the park. There is a small house that can be rented and lots of places to camp with a horse trailer and your horses. There are several box stalls where horses can be put in and also high chain tie lines that goes all the way around the campground where you can tie your horse. There are trails through a huge, wooded area north of the camping and across the creek. Trails criss cross it for hiking and horseback riding and also go around a prairie area at the top of the wooded hill before you get to farmland next to the park. 

On August 20, after checking the 2 bird houses, Becky and I went for a walk through the woods and prairie along one of the trails. It had rained a couple inches the week before, so the woods were moist, and we saw lots of mushrooms.  Here are a few pictures of some we saw.  I will identify the ones I know or found descriptions of them online.

The ghost pipes are back near the old primitive campsite. They are mycophylic, meaning that they get their energy from fungi in the soil, not from the sun (photophilic) like other plants. They can live in the darkest parts of the forest.  They have no chlorophyll so are white or grey and not green. Here are a couple pictures I took of them.

Bluebird Update

Monitoring the new bluebird houses this summer has been fun for Becky and I, but it is also sometimes discouraging.  Let's start out with the fun part.  It has been fun to see bluebird eggs hatch as shown in the last update, grow quickly larger, get feathers and finally be gone from the nest. The pictures below are from the last batch of bluebirds that we saw in one of the new houses near the cemetery. On August 4, five almost mature birds were crowded in the nest and on August 6 there was only one left. We didn't see them fly out or even fly around the nest, but it is encouraging that some fledged and this last one was healthy and ready to fly away. It was gone the next time we checked the nest.

The discouraging part is that many bluebirds used the nests and laid eggs in them, but many did not do as well as the ones above. I just sent my report into the Minnesota Bluebird Recovery Program who granted us the 10 new bluebird houses where many of these eggs were laid.  I said that we counted 44 bluebird eggs with 30 of them hatched in the houses we monitored at Fort Ridgely. Sadly 16 of these died and 14, we are fairly sure, fledged (left the nest).  There are various reasons why some died.  Weather, whether rainy and cold or hot and dry, add stress to both parents and baby birds.  During hot weather there were also lots of gnats that may have made it hard for baby birds.  One of the worst problems are other birds. 

Tree swallows took over several of the new boxes that we meant for bluebirds. One swallow mother showed her displeasure with me by dive bombing me continually as I retreated to my car. She came within inches of my head as she flew in. I even swung at her but she still came back again and again.  I left her and her nest alone after that encounter. Though this swallow was aggressive toward me, we never observed them taking over a nest while bluebirds were inside.

The very aggressive little birds toward bluebirds are house wrens. Both last year and this year we observed them take over houses that bluebirds were in and building their stick covered nests over the bluebird grass nest. Sometimes it was after the bluebirds had fledged but sometimes it was when bluebird eggs or babies were still in the nest. We were disgusted every time we saw sticks coming out of the entrance to a house meant for bluebirds. 

Old Photo Request

The staff at Fort Ridgely State Park would be very interested in receiving any historic photos of the park showing facilities, landscapes, people, etc.  If anyone has any old photos that are in digital format, please email them to Joanne Svendsen at joanne.svendsen@state.mn.us.  If you have photos or slides that are not in digital format, the park has a scanner and Joanne would be happy to scan them for you and send you a copy.  Email Joanne with any questions.  Thank you for your help building the historical archives of Fort Ridgely State Park!

New Naturalist

A naturalist has been found and hired to take over the position that Kelsey Moe and before her Scott Kudelka held.  Augusta  Grumdahl started her new job on August 27 and will be the naturalist for Minneopa, Flandrau and Fort Ridgely state parks. I am looking forward to meeting and working with her at Fort Ridgely. Here is a little introduction that she wrote about herself:

Hello! My name is Augusta Grumdahl, and I am so excited to introduce myself as the new naturalist at Minneopa State Park. I grew up in Duluth and graduated with a degree in Wildlife Ecology at UW-Stevens Point. I started my DNR career at Buffalo River State Park as the Scientific and Natural Area/Park Naturalist. Before that, I’ve worked a lot of different positions throughout the country including an Education Programs Coordinator at the Lake Superior Zoo in Duluth and a seasonal guide in Yellowstone National Park.  I love exploring new places and being outside either birdwatching, camping, or kayaking. I am also a big book worm and love being curled up with a good book and my cat, Darwin.  I am looking forward to starting up programming in Minneopa State Parks and learning more about the area! 

Fort Ridgely Song

On June 7 I led two walks that I entitled Bird Listening, Watching and Photography.  One of the people on the first walk was Chaz Draper from Mankato. He was a musician and after the walk he told Joanne and I that he had written a song about a real soldier that was at Fort Ridgely during the Dakota conflict. We were by the office and he got his guitar out of his car and sang it to us. The link below should take you to a folder with a video I took of Chaz singing to us his song. The title of the song is 'Letter from Fort Ridgely'. He said it was an imagined letter from the actual young sarge (who survived the ambush at Redwood Ferry) to his family back home. Here are the lyrics of the chorus:

promises broken, no calumet smoking, the time for talk is past.

did they really expect more patience, after Myrick said: "let them eat grass"?

Andrew Myrick, a trader at the Lower Agency, actually said that to the Agent in charge of food distribution when the Native Americans had no money to buy it due to its late arrival from our government.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ia2XwGBxHcgKSRPK9