Monday Night Blogging: Pictures from a Busy Weekend

It WAS a busy weekend! Visiting ICF all day Saturday, and hiking at a Door County Land Trust site yesterday, all took place in weather that felt more “late summer” than “early fall” – that’s weather we Wisconsin folk love, but can never count on.

Member Appreciation Day at ICF

On Saturday I had the good fortune to attend the Membership Appreciation Day held once a year at the International Crane Foundation – something I haven’t been able to do before because of scheduling conflicts.

A Black Crowned crane (native of West Africa) was a patient model for the photographers.

I do think that for the modest amount of the membership fee ($25 or $35 for a single; $50 for a family), if you only use it once a year – to visit the cranes on Member Appreciation-Day, it would still be a great bargain. The guided tours by the experts, the behind-the-scenes tours, and all the Q & A opportunities with the experts – that’s an amazing amount of access to the scientists who are protecting cranes all over the world for just the price of becoming a member.

Groups toured at Crane City during Membership Appreciation Day. At all other times this is an off-limits facility for visitors at ICF.

And, or course you can also use your annual membership for free admittance for yourself and 2 or 3 guests, all season long. It’s just that on the once-a-year special appreciation day, you have the extra benefit of meeting and learning from so many of the staff.

I’ll be writing more about what I did and learned at Membership Appreciation Day, soon.

And a Short Hike at Legacy Nature Preserve at Clay Banks

I received a tip last week, through the Door County Land Trust, that a gathering of Monarch butterflies – a large gathering, I think – had been attracted to the Legacy Nature Preserve at Clay Banks, by its September-blooming fields. “Apparently they are stocking up on goldenrod nectar before migration south,” wrote the Land Trust’s Communications Coordinator, Cinnamon Rossman.

A well-defined trail through the tall grass, on a gentle up-slope from the parking lot to the top of a bluff.      

By the time I could check this out yesterday, there were no Monarchs to be found – no doubt already off on their migration. (Here is a link from the Woodland Dunes Nature Center in Manitowoc that explains the four generations of Monarch butterflies that occur in a year’s time; and the final one that is the migrating generation, the one that flies thousands of miles to forests in northern Mexico.) Despite the lack of butterflies, there was still plenty of blooming goldenrod, and it was easy to visualize how it would attract the Monarchs. We also enjoyed a good hiking trail from the parking to the top of a bluff, then down through fields and meadows to Lake Michigan below.

You can find Legacy Nature Preserve along Lake Michigan (at 1188 S. Lake Michigan Drive) in the area called Clay Banks. This is south of Sturgeon Bay.

More photos of the Legacy Nature Preserve at Clay Banks:

Goldenrod was first spotted at the crest of the hill.

 

Then more goldenrod and Lake Michigan in the distance.                                                                

 

And there was a mass of goldenrod along a ridge, in either direction, about as far as the eye could see.

Monday Morning Blogging: A Picture and a Few Words

Where was The Badger & the Whooping Crane when this photo was snapped?

This pic was captured August 23rd, on State Highway 42, also known as Main Street in Fish Creek, WI, just a very short block from the busiest intersection in northern Door. This little garden hosting the monarch butterfly is on Main at the corner of Hill Street.  The butterfly was unphased, but the nearby four corners – and three-way “Stop” – where State Route 42 meets Main and Spruce streets makes for an often-busy and confusing intersection for vehicles and pedestrians.

Here’s a look at the intersection itself earlier today:

 

Well . . .  not quite as busy on Monday morning, the last day of August.

A Visit to a Monarch Waystation

After posting about Monarch butterflies during the first week of August – and asserting that they seemed more plentiful this year – I suddenly stopped seeing them; not in my yard, nor anywhere I went. So it was extremely gratifying last week to visit Peninsula State Park’s Monarch Waystation and to be instantly greeted by a single elegant Monarch, prominently attached to the broad flower-head of a Queen’s Anne Lace.

This is the first monarch I saw at Peninsula State Park’s Monarch Waystation. Can you find it with the Queen Anne’s Lace on the left side of the photo?

Two Monarchs perched on the flower heads of a Joe Pye Weed plant.

It was easy to find other Monarchs throughout the colorful garden, in every direction I looked. The garden is the focal point right now, of the meadow adjacent to the park’s White Cedar Nature Center off Bluff Road. And, Park Naturalist Kathleen Harris confirmed for me that yes, this does seem to be a good year – much better than years in the recent past – for Monarchs; at least in Northeastern Wisconsin.

The Monarch Waystation garden in the meadow adjacent to White Cedar Nature Center, off Bluff Road, in the park.

Last year the garden in the nature center’s meadow was certified by the group Monarch Watch, as a Monarch Waystation, which means that efforts by park staff and volunteers to grow abundant Milkweed – essential for the caterpillar stage of the Monarch Butterfly life cycle – and plenty of native pollinator plants has been recognized. Kathleen Harris told me that when she came to the park 20 years ago that Milkweed was plentiful enough, but that there has been much less of it in recent years. She said this could probably be attributed to a number of factors, but she thinks a key one is that it was being choked out by invasive Knapweed.

Two Monarchs hanging from the stems of a Joe Pye Weed plant

She also outlined for me some of the steps that have been taken to improve the meadow for Monarchs and all kinds of pollinators. She told me several times that she does not consider herself a “monarch expert;” the project, she said, did not begin with the goal of establishing a Monarch Waystation. But back in 2005, park staff recognized the need to combat the weeds and invasives, and restore a diversity of plant life.

A Monarch and Queen Anne’s Lace, next to some of the essential Milkweed.

“A ‘prairie garden’ was our goal at that time,” said Kathleen. “It would be something with a great diversity of plants, and good for all pollinators.” In 2007, Boy Scout Troop #1039 from West DePere, became involved in creating the garden, too – helping to eradicate the problems, and donating new plants. Now that in fact it has become a certified Monarch Way station, she views it personally as something that “gives me a game plan; something that will help me keep it up and meet goals . . .without that it’s easy to lose your focus on one project and let other work take you away from it.”

As thoroughly delightful as I found Peninsula Park’s Monarch Waystation last week, I did find another welcome butterfly surprise, just walking down Main Street in Fish Creek today: a single Monarch playing in a curb-side garden, quite oblivious to all the foot and vehicle traffic sharing its space in the world. And here is that one: