Monarch Summer

Monarch with a caterpillar tattered Heliopsis helianthoides

(click on image for a larger view)

This is going to be a double post this time, both here and on the Prairie Hill Farm Studio blog as well...the prairie is an important theme in my work and my interests elsewhere. 

 Have you been seeing many Monarch butterflies out there this summer?  We've had a good number here on the remnant prairie pasture here at the studio...but the question is also academic, I guess you could say.  The Monarch Butterfly is probably one of our best know insects in North America, yet is one with many issues regarding its health and future in our world.

Journey North, an educational project through The Annenberg Foundation, is asking the question, and has been asking it for several years now.  Journey North is "A global study of wildlife migration and seasonal change."  It is also described as a "free citizen science project for students across North America".  Although this was intentionally set up as a K-12 curriculum, it is open to anyone's participation, and frankly benefits from that.  To learn more about the Monarch and Journey North go to their page at http://www.learner.org/jnorth/monarch/index.html

I like to send in reports as they transform here at the prairie, it contributes to a better understanding of the Monarch and keeps tabs on issues of their population health and the environment around them...they are quite like the proverbial "canary in the coal mine".

Monarch Watch is much the same...Monarch Watch is part of the Biological Survey through the University of Kansas.  Monarch Watch is about the same business as Journey North - the health and status of this North American icon butterfly.  Monarch Watch also takes on the promotion of "habitat for Monarchs".  And because I like to watch and photograph (and draw and paint) Monarchs, habitat "is" important.  

If you are ever interested in growing thing for Monarchs, the following might be helpful.

They're well know for their dependence on milkweeds.  We have 4 species of Asclepiadaceae (milkweed family) here at Prairie Hill Farm - Common (A. syriaca), Butterfly Milkweed (A. tuberosa), Swamp Milkweed (A. incarnata) and Whorled Milkweed (A. verticillata)...the latter, Whorled, is the only one that seems to be more of a "pest" plant here...I've never encouraged it but it is definitely the "bully" milkweed!  Which seems somewhat humorous because its also the smallest in stature...but I also see it as the milkweed of preference for the Monarchs here...oh, they love the Butterfly Milkweed, but mostly the seed pods!  Which I try and save to use for future propagation.  You'll often see me picking Monarch caterpillars off of the A. tuberosa and repositioning them onto the A. verticillata plants!  

But Monarchs, in the butterfly stage, love to feed on just about any nectar, so any wildflower you can find out here on the prairie is a great food source for Monarchs!  If I were to vote on what the butterflies like "here", I'd say mid summer favorites are the Heliopsis helianthoides like in the post photo above (sometimes called Ox-eye sunflower, but it isn't really a sunflower), Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta), Gray-headed Coneflowers (Ratibida pinnata), Compass Plant (Silphium laciniatum) and of course, flowers of all the milkweeds.  Later on in the summer the Liatris family and all the Goldenrods and all the Asters are butterfly magnets!  "Here" the Stiff Goldenrods (Solidago rigida) are the Monarch champs...they are very aggressive forbs too so they aren't necessarily "my" favorites!  

A side benefit here is our grove bordering the north and west side of our acreage.  We tend to be a migration stop-over in September here...its great seeing the 1-2-3 hundred or more Monarchs gather together in the evening, and disperse again in the morning!  What a great circle for the season to complete...I recommend keeping your proverbial door open for the Monarch each year...we need them and they need us!

Early Summer at the Prairie Hill Farm Prairie

Prairie Phlox (Phlox pilosa)

excerpt from HD video footage © Bruce A. Morrison

Already into the second week of July here and the plant progression on the prairie is really moving!  I've been trying to keep up with some maintenance here, especially where the county ripped out the old ditch out front.  We've got some fairly nice forbs and grass taking hold but still have big issues with sweet clover,  mare's tail, sow's ear and thistle.  Trying to be a good neighbor and all...besides it needs to be kept under control!  With the weather we've been having (heat) and the fertile bed of forbs there, pulling is my only option.  Between the heat, humidity and mosquitoes, its a mess to work with!

Prairie footage from Prairie Hill farm!

I've been out in the prairie remnants south of here the past week but have been spending most of my free time here or in the studio.  We do have some nice things coming along on the prairie here at the acreage and I've been shooting footage as I get a chance.  Here's another short video, this of just a few plants and things from the past couple weeks...

Enjoy!  And hoping to see ya on the tallgrass!

Tallgrass Summer

"Dawn in the Valley"

© Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

I've been spending these days exploring new remnants, but still along the little creek that flows past our home in the valley.  The tallgrass is entering summer now and there is no holding it back!

One pleasant personal observation this year has been the larger than remembered vocal presence of Dickcissels.  They are even calling from the fences bordering our own yard!  Now this is likely a good opportunity to get more photos of this grassland favorite...but Murphy's Law steps in with cases like this.  If you go out and dig thistle or mow, or pull brome - they sing praises to you!  If you even carry something "looking like" a camera - they leave for the neighbor's pasture!  Little buggers!  But it's nice to hear and see so many here this summer; would be nice if they were actually rebounding a little.  

I'm embedding a very short video here of a male Dickcissel singing from a pasture fence post...many people don't realize what a pretty little bird this is (or don't even recognize what kind of bird it is!)...although the video isn't a "close-up" of the bird, it will give you an idea of how it looks. For a better look at a Dickcissel, you can view a closer shot in a past post in my Prairie Hill farm blog - Here.  If you subscribe to this blog via e-mail the link for the video feed is - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwuepAhj36E.  (That link would also allow full screen viewing.)

See ya on the tallgrass...enjoy the birds on the prairie this summer!

Spring (Summer!) In The Valley

Scibner's Panic Grass (Panicum oligosanthes) -left

and Porcupine Grass (Stipa spartea) -right

(click on image for a larger view)

It's Spring in the valley here for sure now...in fact summer is more the feel.  On the tallgrass there is still some catch up in forbs but they're catching up fast.  I was just on an area prairie yesterday morning and the Prairie Phlox, Purple American Vetch, Canada Anemones and Hoary Puccoon were all hitting stride.  I'm seeing the Scribner's Panic Grass and the Porcupine Grass setting fruit here on our remnant pasture now also.

Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium campestre) from the

remnant pasture here.

I usually am able to gauge everything here by the Fringed Puccoon and the Blue-eyed Grasses, but they were both later than I've ever recorded them this year (about 12 days late), but they are in record number here - very fun to see!  I'm not sure what causes the different variations in the Blue-eyed Grass but they are generally almost white to very pale blue here, yet this year I had 40-50% blue to dark blue...interesting!

I recorded some of the noise in the neighborhood here a couple weeks back, and although they're still singing, aside from the neighborhood Coyotes - some of the frog voices have changed; the Toads and Leopard and Chorus Frogs have finally finished and the Cricket and Copes Gray Tree Frogs are taking over!  I'm trying to find a good time to record them as well but here is our "Spring in the Valley" chorus for you to listen to!

If you subscribe via e-mail, you may have to click back to the actual blog to play this audio - 

http://tallgrassjournal.blogspot.com/

Stay busy and hope to see you in the tallgrass!

Changing for Spring - Update

American Goldfinch - male

photograph © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

I think you could say part of this is an update on an older blog.  In the "Changing for Spring!" blog from April 1st, I talked about the Goldfinches molting here at the acreage.  Well, they've completed the molt cycle a couple weeks or more back and I thought I'd throw one up for you to see a male American Goldfinch in all its finery :)  I'm showing the back of the bird because it's the showiest profile...the beautiful stark black and white patterns with the bird's bright yellow back and nape and the forehead black again (as well as the accent of the bill coloration).  What a pretty little bird!

Now that the first flush of dandelions has gone to seed, these birds are all over the ground feeding on the seed heads.  It's pretty amazing (and amusing) when you look out on all the beautiful dandelions and suddenly they take flight!  The birds are like flying dandelions!  And they sing too!  What more could you ask?! 

I've often asked myself questions about the birds we see out on the tallgrass now...were they all here in similar numbers or did we create conditions making them more prevalent in some ways?  I know the American Goldfinch was very likely as common out on the prairie now as a couple hundred years ago. Maybe their population was different than now, but they most certainly were a bird of the prairie as much as the rest of the North American continent.

Baltimore Oriole - male

photograph © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

What about others?  The Baltimore and Orchard Orioles are back in the acreage now.  Were they "here" back "in the day"?  I'm assuming they may have been a savanna species...here in SE O'Brien County (Iowa), there were Bur Oak savannas nearby...some along Waterman Creek in the valley here but more so along the Little Sioux River valley south of us.  If they were a species of the savanna, were they "common"?  Interesting question.  I must say that if they weren't common then, we're very fortunate they are now!!!  Love these guys!

Gotta get some work done!  Hope you're not too distracted like I seem to be! 

See you on the Tallgrass!

Every Little Bit

"Summer Along Angler's Bay"

color pencil - 5X7" - art work © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for larger view)

This "spring" has really been a bugger!  Well, maybe I'm just being impatient but until this past weekend, it's just been a gray cold/windy/wet reminder of November!  

I haven't been able to do any of the prep work in the pastures that I'd like, other than (thank goodness!) get our burning accomplished about 4 weeks back.  We opted to burn 2 of the 3 acres, leaving the third acre abutting the 23 acre native pasture in back, unburned.  We had a good deal of insect diversity back in that corner last summer and fall; maybe resting it another year will help make it a banner year again?  We also burned another acre south of the driveway...this section has yet to be overseeded...I am very interested in seeing what may come back on it's own...this is the 3rd year we've burned it now.  The south edge of this acre burn is our neighbor's pasture - it has never been burned and does have some grass remnants of Side Oats Grama, Tall Dropseed, and Blue Grama Grass.  Also has Fringed Puccoon (which we discovered there for the first time last spring) and Blue Eyed Grass.  There's about 3 and a half acres there so I'm tending to believe that our one acre burn next to it will still repopulate with invertebrates from there.

There's been quite a stir on the list servs here in Iowa the past couple of weeks.  It may have been a small "bit" of a tragedy, but tragic none-the-less.  

Maybe the old factoid that Iowa is the most changed landscape of any of the 50 states is being overused?  I don't think so, I think that statement is true; we're not being overly protective or cautious - we need to waiver on the side of our natural heritage in our thinking.

Apparently, a small wet/wet mesic prairie disappeared this month in eastern Iowa.  Iowa is a state that now has so little of what it was made up of just 150 years ago and whenever a tiny piece that, miraculously survived this long suddenly disappears, well...it's tragic.

The prairie in question was near the town of Dyersville...it was considered a wetland prairie and was known for some high quality wet and wet mesic native plants "for" Iowa.  A couple weeks back, someone who was aware of the prairie (it was privately owned), was stunned to see it was being filled over with dirt.  Some frantic discussion on the native plants list serv found that it was one of those incidents that no one noticed until it was over.  Further investigation showed it was all done by the book (according to Iowa regulations), all permits were applied for, eventually approved, and the work commenced.  

Being a wetland, it was "assumed" the property was "safe" from this type of future...but unlike most states (particularly neighboring states) Iowa does not have any state regs against wetland drainage if they do not fall under federal jurisdiction.  This small wetland prairie did not.

Ironically, this wetland prairie was filled in to build a school building on.  Perhaps ironically, again, some day a class at this school might, in studying our vanishing natural heritage, plant a prairie plot in the school yard somewhere...this was poised by a list serv contributor and I must say - this was nearly the first thought that formed in my own mind when I read the circumstances.

The image at the top of the blog is a small color pencil study I recently finished of a location north of us - Angler's Bay on Spirit Lake in Dickinson County.  In my rendition I left out "civilization" on the far distant shoreline.  In reality it is dotted with houses and docks - visible from this reed filled shore across the bay.  That was the future this shoreline was looking at...at least the possibility of it.  But the owners of this 3/4 mile long reed bed (the area's largest remaining virgin bullrush bed) saw the need to preserve this "wetland".  Through a large/intense campaign, the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation was able to save this "bit" of our natural heritage...only 93 acres, but another "bit" of our grand children's heritage is being preserved!

I know, in general conversation, a lament of losing 10 or 20 acres of prairie or wetland would almost certainly be scoffed at by the majority of people hearing about it...but we've long passed the point where we can write it off like someone tossing trash out of a passing car.  When it's gone, it's truly gone...lets try harder to instill a true value on what of our heritage remains - natural and cultural!

They're Here!

Pasque Flowers (Pulsatilla patens) on Waterman Prairie

Photograph © Bruce A. Morrison

The Prairie has begun blooming!  The first flower of spring on the prairie finally began blooming up here in the NW corner of the state this past weekend.  This is always my "official" beginning of spring on the Tallgrass...look forward to it all winter long because it means the season has begun and better days..."great" days, are ahead!

Georgie and I went out on Sunday afternoon to check the prairies for pasques... a wind advisory with a real stiff blow out of the west/northwest was making photography almost untenable...a higher shutter speed was the only option!

Pasque Flowers (Pulsatilla patens) and dead cedar on Waterman Prairie

Photograph © Bruce A. Morrison

Waterman Prairie, here in S.E. O'Brien County, is in the "neighborhood" and we checked out all the spots that we've found these forbs in past years.  Many slopes that had once been over run with Eastern Red Cedar trees here, have had their trees treated or cut to bring back the original prairie habitat.  This, coupled with controlled burns and/or grazing, has encouraged the tallgrass plants to return.  It's not uncommon to find Pasque Flowers growing at the base of the cedar stumps and trunks.  It's great to see the prairie recovering on the slopes of the hills in the valley!

Veering a little, I'd like to comment that our entire planet "is in the neighborhood".  Let's try to take this more to heart.  With sincerity, lets celebrate this place we all must live...and heed the needs that exist "in our neighborhood".   Give thought and action to the needs of our planet's peoples and our planet's habitats.  Please give to your organizations of choice for those in need!

Spring is on the Tallgrass - let the games begin!