Prairie Romp: An Outing to Walpole Island

Late this morning the local naturalists had an outing to Walpole Island.  It is not often that we get a chance to check out some of the prairie sites, so it was something one could not pass up.  Today, we were led into a site by Clint Jacobs.  I have been to a few other sites, but this was one that I had never visited.  I was hoping that it was a different site that we had been to many years ago...that might have produced some Northern Bobwhite!

We parked our cars under an Ohio Buckeye tree, which is very rare for Canada.  In fact, I do not think it grows anywhere else...naturally!

Pink Milkwort was plentiful at this site.  It is tiny a plant found regularly on Walpole and some at Ojibway.

There was another kind of milkwort which I think was Field Milkwort.

Rough Blazing Star is quite abundant at this particular site.  There were a few Dense Blazing Star soon to come into bloom, but it was outnumbered by Rough by a longshot.

One section had some Colicroot.

Colicroot

We were free to roam around to take in the unique plants.

There were lots of other prairie plants to look at.

Butterfly Milkweed

Mountain Mint

Showy Goldenrod (not in bloom)

Butterflies and dragonflies were not abundant (not surprising for this year!),  but Halloween Pennant was one of the more numerous odes.

Halloween Pennant on Rough Blazing Star

Halloween Pennant on Dense Blazing Star

One of the butterflies was this Eastern Tailed-Blue.

We were not there to look at birds, but a Black-billed Cuckoo was calling nearby.

Beforehand, while waiting at the arena parking lot, a Broad-winged Hawk soared overhead.  An odd sighting for this time of year.  I did not have my camera on hand at the time!

This afternoon I stopped by Reid CA since the weather was quite nice.  Some Dukes' Skippers were working the sedges.

While looking at a Dukes', I found a Striped Hairstreak-first for the year, finally!

I saw a couple of Broad-winged Skippers in another area.  This year it is too wet to walk through the sedges, so this was a distant shot.