Another Daily Flower Report

I think of DYCs as a late summer thing, but some bloom early!  This, I believe, is an ox-eye sunflower.  Perhaps more interesting, in this case, is the plant's scientific name -- it's a Heliopsis species.  "Helio" is Greek for sun... opsis is Greek for "appearance" -- so it looks like the sun.  Its specific name is helianthoides, which means "like Helianthus" (that being the genus of sunflowers).  So it looks like the sun, and like a sunflower!  Heliopsis species are sometimes called false sunflowers. 

Also just starting to bloom are Asclepias species, here a butterflweed. Though a member of the milkweed genus, these plants don't have the milky sap associated with most milkweeds.  They are, however, still larval hosts to monarch butterflies! 

Pretty in Pink

The pond is dressed in pink today... 

Last year, this slender false foxglove was a new plant for me -- it's great to see its delicate blooms again!  And swamp milkweed, a late-blooming Asclepias, is flowering!

Buggin' Out

Clusters of milkweed bugs -- most young but of varying sizes, with a few adults scattered in  -- clamber all over each other and the pods of the milkweed plants that host them.  Very cool. 

Water lilies are in full bloom!

I will tell you one of my favorite phenology-teaching stories... Several years ago, we were doing a phenology/Native American curricular activity with 1st grade students... pretty young.  The basic idea was that we studied the native calendars, how they named the months after phenological occurences (Snow crust moon, Strawberry moon, etc.), and then the kids created their own calendar based on the phenology here.  We did this activity in late winter, but we wanted a full year calendar, so we had each child do his/her birthmonth.  A lot of the summer ones were ended up being "hot moon" or "sunny moon"... it's not like they could go outside and look at what was happening in August, and they were pretty young.  Asking them to remember what was happening outside on their birthday... well, as I said.  A lot of "hot" and "sunny."  But then I had this one student who drew a water lily and explained that in August around his birthday he always saw them on the pond.  I remember being so impressed by that!  (There were several other examples of really excellent memories/observations -- I don't want to imply that this was the only one.  But it's the one I will always remember!)

Falling

The prairie is becoming increasingly crispy and brown; the trees in the distance continue to shed. Milkweed seeds beckon from across the fields, white half-released puffballs that catch the sunlight and practically beg you to come and grab them and toss... you feel their softness and weightlessness as you lift them skyward and open your fingers, keeping your hand up in the air as the last of the potential plants takes off and joins the world on its own. And you watch as they float in the air, gracefully hanging from their parachutes. They drift like big flakes of gently falling snow, until they land... everywhere... on my coat, the trail, the water... below, they adorn all sorts of non-asclepias plants... and I hope some land in ideal places for new milkweed to grow. Although they may be somewhat... well, weedy, they provide countless minutes of pure and youthful and worry-free joy.

Summer Blahs, Already

I've been absent for a while. There are a couple of reasons. First, my back went out this weekend. I know, that makes me sound old, but I have a bad back (genetic, I guess) and every once in a while this happens to me. With that, just normal stuff -- and that's normal summer stuff, so it's pretty relaxed anyhow -- has been a chore. Today I am mostly better but not 100%.

Also, summer seems to have stalled before it's even begun. Every day, it's been in the 70s at the most and raining. Some storms, some steady rain, but every day, rain. And when it's not rain, clouds and general haze. This has added mental laziness on top of my physical malady.

That said, things have happened. Butterfly milkweed opened, in some places, and purple coneflower, in some places, and even a very early black-eyed susan. One of these days, I"ll get around to downloading pics. Probably.

So that's me, I hope the rest of you are better than me, not that I'm pitying myself. Things could be a lot worse. And it's good not to have to water anything while I'm under the weather, so that's a bonus.

OK, I've finally gotten around to sharing the discoveries from my last school campout (June 1-3). Actually, I wrote this entry before, and then blogger crashed, erasing much of the work and also kicking me out for about 24 hours. So this isn't as wordy as the original, but it's plenty, I think... Anyhow. One of the trip's coolest moments was watching two smallish pileated woodpeckers dance around a tree trunk about 20 feet from us. I didn't get a great picture, but you can clearly see the pileated silhouette:

Our other avian friends, the wild turkeys, invaded our campsite. These two birds were so close to tents that if kids had come out at the right moment, it could have been very entertaining. But alas...
We saw two snakes... this tiny garter snake...

and this ginormous norther water snake. The previous week, if you recall, we saw a baby swimming... hard to believe it will end up like this guy, who was easily 5 feet long and a few inches in diameter. (It was ID'ed by some other hikers with a lot of scientific equipment, so I'm choosing to trust them...)

Also in the herpetology realm,several of these (some sort of true frog, don't ask me) sat near a wetland, happy enough to let us look and photograph, but disappearing as fast as a shot as soon as a 5th grade hand reached out to grab.

We saw, also, many interesting, colorful spiders. If I had been alone, I may have focused on them more, but I wasn't. So all I have is these guys:

Transitioning to arthropods people prefer, these damselflies -- either female blue-fronted dancers (brown form) or eastern forktails (immature females) -- kept landing on kids.

As did these butterflies (azures?), which I believe were going for the salt form our sweat. You could sit and watch their proboscises probing. Here, it is eating something else entirely...

These galls shall provide our transition from animal to plant... on serviceberry leaves, I just thought their colors were fantastic.

This poke milkweed (which I think I mid-identified last June 25)-- clearly asclepias -- is just a little bit different than other milkweeds, with its loosely clustered flowers in subtle shades of lavender and green. It's really quite pretty.

A catchfly?

And now for some fungus observations... there are lots of cool fungi at Starved Rock, though not as many fruiting bodies as I saw last June, but I am showing only these three...

this eyelash cup because of its bright orange color and the eponymous "eyelashes"...
this polypore because of its lovely colors of purple and orange and brown...
and this little fellow because of the neat ridges on its cap.

Photo Journal

Currant flowers, 4-22.

First Jacob's Ladder, 4-22.

4-23. Milkweeds are some of the latest plants to emerge, so when their bullet-shaped seedlings come up, I know it's time to start looking for early signs of SUMMER.

4-23. Pasqueflower seeds.

Redbud flowers, 4-25.

Tulip studies, 4-25.

"Winter" Wildflowers VI

Probably very little explanation needed for this winter wildflower... milkweed is one of the most distinctive forms on the prairie. An interesting study in textures, too... fuzzy in some places, soft in some places, smooth in some places, bumpy...

Walking the Trail of History

Today started out as a beautiful day -- crisp, cool, sunny. We had a very busy and productive day. Among other things, we accomplished one of my least favorite gardening tasks... hose clean-up. It's always done in the cold, and you always get wet and muddy, plus it means you won't have anything to water for a long while. Then we went to the Trail of History, which is an annual event held in Glacial Park by the McHenry County Conservation District.

Here's a funny story from our walk back. Although it started out beautiful, the weather took a turn for the rotten while we were at the event. By this point it is very cold, cloudy, and intermittently raining. I stop occasionally to take photos of plant phenophases, and I admit that most people wouldn't use these things as photograph subjects, especially given the aforementioned weather. As I'm taking this picture of Indian grass with its seeds dry and ready to fall,

a kid... and I should point out that by kid, I mean a middle school aged kid, not like a 4-year old who could not possibly be expected to understand social mores such as if you're going to insult a stranger in public, you should probably do it, you know, in a whisper or something... so anyhow, a kid says to her mom, "Look at them. They're taking a picture of nothing. And just back there they took a picture of those leaves. [White oak, tips turning reddish brown, not included in post]. What's wrong with them?" Answer: I'm not sure, but I'm not DEAF, so we can check that off the list. We glared and mom, embarrassed, shushed kid and hurried the family along the trail. They got no lecture on noticing plant phenophases, or anything, but I did compose one in my head as we continued walking...

Here are some other pictures I took, despite the mocking of the general public.

Oaks across the wetland.

Milkweed seeds exploding.

Bog through the branches of bur oak. Leatherleaf is turning quite red in the bog.

Oak branches form an archway over the trail.

Another Dreary Day

(ironweed seeds, bergamot seeds, m. mint seeds, compass plant leaves)
The prairie is getting browner and seedier. (Though not drier. It is, again, raining and in the 40's! Yea!) I, like a little kid, love the seeds of milkweed, pictured above. It's not the flying and spreading that draws me to them, but rather how they look like fish scales when the pod has popped open but the seeds haven't yet escaped.
Despite the less-than-hospitable weather, there are still some creepy-crawlies about. In addition to these beetles, I also found a sluggish but moving grasshopper, and a very active jumping spider.

The Birds and the Trees

Acorns are littering the ground underneath the bur oak trees...
Aspen trees are yellowing and leaves are blowing off during windier moments.

This morning was a bird-heavy morning. I saw grebes in the lake, disappearing and reappearing in new spots; mallards dabbling, geese flying south, and a heron stalking some prey. RWBBs were also very active, dipping and diving as my students disturbed them. Also saw goldfinches and some other LBBs, plus a chickadee. Oh, and gulls. In less than an hour, and I wasn't looking for birds. So it's a bird-heavy day.

Other notes:

• milkweed pods are splitting open and spilling their seeds.
• Very few purple asters are left -- just a few New England's remain. A lot of white ones are still flowering, though.
• Goldenrod are also going to seed.
• Grasshoppers are sluggish but coming out this morning...

Still Blown Away

First, I would like to note... I was correct. My first class this morning had 21 students. Four kids wore shorts, and 1 kid wore capris. I would say half the class had a sweatshirt as their only coat, which did nothing to block the wind. And the wind was so LOUD, I had to shout at the top of my lungs and I still think the kids across the circle couldn't hear me very well.
Milkweed seed pods have not split open yet, for the most part. But some seeds were blowing past (at a very fast speed foe something with a parachute to slow it down) so at least one pod split open, either naturally or with the help of a child.
Saw 2 woolly bears already today. These caterpillars seem to thrive in chilly weather -- I haven't seen one all summer, and now that it's cooler, here they are!
This heron spent the morning crouched down, either stalking a fish or a frog, or trying to stay warm...
Nothing is actually happening to the cattails... their seeds aren't spreading or anything. I just wanted to show how bent over they were in the wind; and note that the lilypad in the background is blowing out of the water. The lake (and this is not a big lake) actually had whitecaps this morning.