August 30 Asters Begin

August 29 Raccoon DOR

August 28 Green and Yellow, some Brown

August 27 Chelone Genus?

August 26 Purple Coneflower to Seed

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August 25 Skunk DOR

August 24 Prairie Dock

August 23 Big Bluestem on the Breeze

August 22 Highbush Cranberry

August 21 Young Green Frog

August 20 Summer Triangle

August 19 Grasshopper Love

August 18 Willow Leaves Turn

August 17 Canada Wild-Rye

August 16 Teenage Heron

Once again we've run into a green heron, or I should say we tried to stay perfectly still after noticing one fishing very close by. This happened on University Bay this time in the late afternoon. The heron is a first year bird, born in spring, and identified by its brown streaks on a white front. Jack thought about taking off (I named it Jack) right away, but folded his wings back and climbed up this willow branch, nipping at the leaves every now and again. I think he was probably grabbing insects of the leaves, because no leaves went down the hatch. After some food, he started a round of feather preening and kept eyeing me to make sure I wasn't getting any closer as I watched. With very little bird action this time of year, especially after seven in the morning, it's nice to see green herons fishing on lakes and ponds every couple days.

August 15 Golden Prairie

There are several goldenrods making their appearance this mid-August and I believe this one is canadian goldenrod (Solidago canadensis), our most common species. With short green leaves whorled around a green stalk, it is extremely variable in height and arrangement and number of flowers. Something to look for on these is a round bulge in the stem about the size of a walnut, which is an insect gall. A fly, wasp, or moth will deposit an egg in the stem which will co-opt the plant's growing mechanism to grow a secure shell around the egg. While not detrimental to the plant, its clearly and invasion or privacy, but a smart one. These galls can be seen throughout winter on standing plants. For now, the new flowers on canadian goldenrod are attracting big orange beetles and tiny black beetles and bumblebees alike. They will be the stars of the prairie show for the next month.

August 14 Crab Spider Waits

Did you know? That not all spider spin webs to catch their prey? The family of spiders known as crab spiders sit still on flowers or leaves and simply wait for insects to show up, looking for nectar. Their specialized first two pairs of legs are super long, allowing them an extended reach to grab those pesky flying bugs that have incredibly fast reaction times. Those legs are also what gives them resemblance to crabs and hence the family name. There are so many hundreds of spider species in the state and thousands in the world that many do not have common names. Using the three dots on a white abdomen I figured out that this one is a Missumesus oblongus, but three-spotted white crab spider is fine by me too. If you visit a prairie soon, or the flowers at your house, take a close look and maybe you will see a tiny crab spider hunting.

August 13 Wisconsin Kite

At Warner Park today I saw the rarest of raptors - a wisconsin kite (Stuckius rufus) high up in an oak tree. The kite was impressively perched atop a small branch and swaying back and forth looking for prey. With a wingspan of four and half feet, this predator can swoop down with speedy speed to catch rabbits, gophers, or unsuspecting dogs off the leash at Warner Park. Its brightly spotted wings serve as a warning signal to all mammals below, not to mention its oversized beak for tearing meat into pieces. I highly suggest a visit to the park to check out this rare bird and check it off your life list!

August 12 Wow

What I've been able to discover about this insect is that it is a planthopper of the genus Acanalonia, based on the shape of its head, leg color, and wings. Green cone-headed planthopper sounds like a good name to me, but it's OK not to know the species. What's important is what they do, which is sit still most of the time, but when hungry they may make a leap of several feet to the nearest plant. They eat from a variety of plants, which is a bit rare for such a small creature. They will rest on a stem and bite a hole into it, releasing the sap directly into their mouths. They quickly digest the nutrients and then excrete the rest. Just another amazing creature that goes about life, drinking sap, and jumping really far.

August 11 White Water Lily

I was moving along the Wingra Creek Trail this afternoon and noticed two flowers among the lily pads. White water lily (Nymphaea odorata) is its obvious name, and this plant enjoys still water. It forms dense colonies since it has the ability to spread through its rhizomes (roots) as well as from seeds. The roots must anchor to the bottom, so it will grow in water up to 5 feet deep. This is why they form a dense mat near the shoreline of Lake Wingra, and grow throughout Wingra creek. The plant provides cover for a variety of fish and macroinvertabrates. The flowers will bloom any time during summer.

August 10 Cumulonimbus

It seems as though it hasn't rained in a long time, but August is typically the driest summer month, only dropping 2.1 inches of rain in Madison on average. It rained overnight on August 7th, but other than that it has been a hot and dry couple of weeks. The late summer humidity is trying hard to produce giant thunderheads like this one, known as cumulonimbus clouds. Cumulus clouds are the big puffy ones that move across the sky in groups and look like gumby or a cat or your great uncle. When humidity reaches them and condenses the clouds will grow and become denser, blocking more sunlight and starting to look very dark to us below. When the moisture is too heavy for the cloud, down it falls onto us. And hopefully the precipitation is accompanied by supercharged cracks in air pressure, sending electricity through the vacuum and breaking the sound barrier to produce thunder. I'm hopeful for a storm soon.

August 9 Pokeweed Flowers & Fruits

I was walking around in Olin Park today, waiting to enter the Great Taste festival, and enjoyed the complete quiet for a few hours. Well, quiet with the occasional fishing boat moving down the shore. I stopped many times to stare at this bright pink anomaly, wondering if I had ever seen it before and heard its name. It turns out to be American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana), a native plant of the eastern United States. Some reading tells me that although native, it can spread rapidly into disturbed areas and dominate the forest understory. It does however produce a large amount of fruit, which remind me of fruit snacks but are toxic enough to humans to be deadly. Birds, on the other hand, gobble them up in fall and winter, so that's another positive. Search for large long leaves and these bright fruit stalks and you can't miss pokeweed.

August 8 Goldenrods Begin

This week the cup plants are still sending out their last flowers and the culver's root in the lower right corner is somehow still out. Many of the yellow and purple coneflowers have gone to seed and lost their petals, while late blooming flowers like ironweed, brown-eyed susans, and cardinalflower are in full flower. The various goldenrod species of the prairie are slowly coming out, with a few samples here and there and hundreds of plants with the first signs of flowers. The dog days have started drying the prairie out finally, but its density keeps the soil shaded and moist.

August 7 First Signs of Fall

Today when I was walking through the Lakeshore Preserve towards the garden I noticed this burst of color along the trail. Four woody shrubs of the same species have already begun sending sugar out of their leaves and back down towards the roots. So far, I think the most likely candidates are chokecherry, juneberry, or nannberry, but I need to go back and get a leaf sample to be sure. This means that with the shortening days, trees and shrubs are starting to think about dormancy and will base their response on thousands of generations' wisdom - those that grow the longest but still send their energy underground before the frost will survive and thrive. How many weeks of growth left? 11? 9?

August 6 Candleflame Lichen

This specimen is sitting on a downed white birch trunk on the ground at the Lakeshore Preserve just a minute in from the trailhead. Lichens are difficult to identify, just like fungi, but they are different from fungi because they associate with algae, and sometimes a bacteria, in order to grow and live. Using my field guide, my best guess at this point is candleflame lichen (candelaria concolor). It grows on trees and has bright yellow rosettes which overlap. So far, lichenologists have found 14,000 species of lichens on earth, and they are present even when you don't see them - their spores are floating and flying on the wind, ready to grow on their preferred surface (they either like only rocks, trees, or soil) under the right conditions. A single tree may have twenty lichens on it, so go and count!

August 5 Purple Archflower

This morning I went for a run in old Hoyt Park, admiring the tight valley of jewelweed next to limestone cliffs as I climbed to the top of the park. Mostly quiet, the sounds of chickadees and an indigo bunting came through the branches as I traveled and found myself in the small restored prairie on the east end. I was impressed by the wash of color, not having seen the spot since May. Compass and cup plants line the trail and purple coneflowers are everywhere, along with bee balm and goldenrod. The coneflower petals are fading, but the bright orange porcupine seed heads are as interesting as ever, especially with a sedge arch over the top. This is one of the best spots in the city for color right now if you need a strong dose of flowers in your life.

August 4 Happy Summer

It was hard not to feel happy about my short adventure to the Lakeshore Preserve this morning. Just in from the trailhead, an incredibly colorful rain garden greets every runner, dogwalker, and tai chi artist that enters. Flycatchers and chickadees flit around, grabbing bugs for breakfast. And the flowers smile at you as you walk the trail.

August 3 Farewell, Library Elm

One of my favorite trees in Madison has lived a long and prosperous life, serving as a gateway to downtown from the south. Or a gateway out of the city, depending on your direction of travel. Its last neighbor was the south library branch, but this American elm sprouted around the year 1900, when park street was just a dirt road known as "Oregon Ave," and the closest buildings were a half mile away. Land was subdivided and sold in the nearby Bram's Addition in 1908, bringing humans closer and growing activity on the road. Golfers could be seen in this same view in the 1920's and 30s, swinging their clubs on the Burr Oaks golf course. Then in 1948, park street widened to a paved, 4-lane road in anticipation of the south beltline expansion. The bowling alley opened nearby in the 1950s, and the original Villager Mall was built along with the Burr Oaks neighborhood over the course of a decade. For fifty years, our elm grew to mature old age in the corner of a parking lot, watching cars come and go to the mall. Finally, in 2010, the library and the Urban League moved into the new building seen here, and the elm gave it excellent shade. The tree still had plenty of leaves this year, but was beginning to rot from inside out, as hardwoods do. And so the time came for the south Madison elm to come down, silently, without resisting.

August 2 Curtis Prairie

Today I led a tour on Curtis Prairie at the UW Arboretum where twenty-mile-per-hour gusts kept us dry in the humid heat and provided a sense of adventure. We identified and distinguished a slew of sunflowers, including yellow coneflower and rosinweed, ox eyes and cup plants, prairie blazing stars and black-eyed susans. We saw an amazing field of rattlesnake masters and a sorrowing field of invasive reed canary grass. Dedicated in 1934, the prairie then was no more than a collection of fallow farm fields and horse meadows. The first tasks for the 200 CCC men who arrived in Madison in 1935 was to rip up acres of open turf. Plantings came quickly then, with 42 trial species over the next few years. A photo of Aldo Leopold and three friends standing over a small burned over plot shows that experiments with fire started shortly thereafter. Curtis Prairie is the oldest restored tall-grass prairie ecosystem in the world, and gives a stunning, yet limited, feel for what the original 2 million acres of Wisconsin prairie offered. Curtis has over 300 native plant species, including joe-pye weed, which support a vast collection of insects (see swallowtail butterfly), invertebrates, mammals, fungus, and birds. And yet it is besieged on all sides - by major highways, stormwater retention ponds, fast moving woody plants, and 230,000 invasive humans. Curtis Prairie is an island in an ecological ocean, and a history book revealing our connection to the land.

August 1 Lady Whitetail Skimmer

I've become more fascinated by dragonflies lately as I see more and more buzz over the lakes and learn just how species there are in the world. According to the EEK! Wisconsin page, there are 110 species of dragonflies that breed in Wisconsin in six different families. There are 450 in North America and at least 5,100 on earth. That is almost the same number of mammal species! This one is a common whitetail (Libellula plathemis), but its tail is not white because it is the female. Same family as the blue dasher, yet this dragonfly has a stout abdomen and three dark spots on each wing. Skimmers received their name via the females' habit of dropping eggs into water during a low pass over the pond. Usually the dragonfly life cycle is 1.egg 2. underwater nymph 3. flying adult. However the male adult of this species will start out with a dark abdomen which somehow turns white. Does it shed its skin again, or does the color simply change with age? Either way the adults will only live for a few months, after spending up to four years as nymphs at the bottom of a pond.

July 31 Turtle Pile

You know we've reached the dog days when you see a scene like this. Most days now, when we take summer campers down to the Nature Center pond, there are three and four turtles sleeping on top of each other in the sun, like little solar panels absorbing energy. This boardwalk somehow made its way out to the middle and is the perfect raft for these sunbathers. It seems to me like the bookend turtles here are likely the children of the large middle turtle - look at the size of that foot!