Visit a prairie.
I did so last weekend, on a field trip to the Schurch-Thomson Prairie, near Barneveld, Wisconsin. The outing was a joint venture of the Southern Wisconsin Butterfly Association, the Madison Audubon Society, and the Prairie Enthusiasts, who own and maintain the site.
The advantage of jointly-sponsored field trips is that participants have a wide range of expertise. Within that day's group of 15, there were some who could identify for us a meadowlark on a shrub, the identity of every dragonfly that we saw, the species of a sun-bleached skull, and a most unusual plant - a bergamot ("Bee Balm") that was totally white (photo at right) instead of the usual lavender color.A mature prairie in full midsummer bloom is a delight to see, and absolutely awesome to walk through. This prairie is maintained in its native state, which means there are no paved trails - one just plunges ahead through the vegetation, some of which overtops an adult's head.
This particular site coveres almost 200 acres, and includes not just remnant prairie, but also some oak savanna and several spring seeps which continually bubble with cold water. The rockiness of the hillsides of this plot prevented European settlers from putting all of it to the plough, so it served as pasture and was partially overgrown with trees until the Prairie Enthusiasts instituted a restoration and management program.
Most of the butterflies that day were fast-flying fritillaries, including the magnificent Regal Fritillary, which is endangered in all states east of the Mississippi. This battered Coral Hairstreak was content to rest on my hand.
The rest of the photos are a probably inadequate representation of the floral bounty of the site.
It does give one a sense of what this part of the country was like before European settlers converted so much of it to farms.
The fact that prairie like this can be found in Wisconsin, which is rightfully thought of as a woods-and-lakes state is a reminder that there are specimens of remnant original prairie throughout much of the United States. To visit one, look for a local chapter of the Prairie Enthusiasts (in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois) or equivalent groups elsewhere in the country (start with Audubon or butterfly groups, or ask at your local library).
A prairie walk should be on your bucket list.
The pics and the place are gorgeous. One Q: Did you wear hip boots to keep off the noseeums? Were fleas, ticks, chiggers, etc., even a problem where you were?
ReplyDeleteLurker111
No-see-ums are not a particular problem. Whenever I hike I do tuck my pants leg inside my socks so that any ticks ascending me do so on the outside of my trousers. There weren't any in the prairie (ticks are mostly woodland critters). And mosquitos tend not to be a problem out in the open. But I was bitten by some tiny flies (I think referred to by some as "blackflies" but I don't know the type. They were a nuisance and those bites stung. Also brushed against some nettle at one point.
DeleteThanks for the info. I've brushed the back of my hand against nettle and I was stinging for three days. Definitely high-quality nettle.
DeleteLurker111
Makes you realize why the indigenous peoples who inhabited the Prairies used to burn off the dead growth from the previous year every Spring. It would've been impossible to hunt or even make much speed in such a tangle!
ReplyDeleteNot being a native of the Midwest and moving to Minnesota some 40 years ago, I am constantly thinking of the original settlers of this region and what fortitude they must have had to settle this land. Of course, I regret that much of the area has become overdeveloped and the lands that the indigenous inhabitants is no longer theirs to call their own.
ReplyDeleteOne of the local parks here has a volunteer group that is very involved in restoration. They do a lot of invasive species removal (which resulted in an absolutely gorgeous landscape of some sort of bluish-purple flower blanketing a forest floor in part of the park). They also have one-acre and seven-acre prairie restoration areas. Not big, but still good. It's amazing how much time animals like song sparrows preferentially spend in even the tiny one-acre area compared to the shorter grasses outside it.
ReplyDeleteGood for them - whereever you are. It's a lot of work (and expense) to do good environmental restoration. I'm glad to hear about such successes.
DeleteYou should find out when they burn the prairie and ask to observe/document it for your blog. A prairie fire can be quite spectacular and far too many people are unaware of the role fire plays in many natural communities.
ReplyDeletePrairie people and butterfly people politely disagree about the burning of meadows and prairies, because the fire, while it does remove dead vegetation and release nutrients back into soil, also destroys chrysalises, caterpillars, and eggs of butterflies.
DeleteMarcie O'Connor has written a thoughtful essay on this topic in her excellent blog A Prairie Haven (about restoring an old farm to its native state). Here's the blog -
Deletehttp://www.aprairiehaven.com/
and here's the post about fire -
http://www.aprairiehaven.com/?page_id=5005
There is a going to be a difference of opinion when there is focus on a narrow group of organisms vs a focus on a natural community that supports a wide range of organisms. There too is a risk of becoming to focused on a land management technique and over applying it. There is no doubt however that fire played an important role in the evolution of the prairie ecosystem. Good land managers are aware of the risks of burning all of the available habitat in one year and observant ones notice that plant species richness following a fire will be high but abundance will shift over consecutive years until the woody plants begin again to dominate. This means that some species do their best right after a fire, some the second year, some the third year, etc. And what is seen in the plant species is often reflected in the insect species. What I am getting at is annual burning too is often a bad idea.
ReplyDeleteI have met many entomologists, herpetologists, butterfly enthusiasts, and others who protest the use of fire as a management tool because of the potential negative impacts to their specific group of organism but I have never met an ecologist that has done so. And generally when I do meet the protestors I meet them on the properties I manage with fire because they are there to see the rare butterfly, beetle, or herp that only exists on the site because of a regular and judicial use of fire.