Kaw Valley Almanac

“A snowberry clearwing moth landed on my leg while at the Prairie Park prairie, a timely reminder that this week is National Moth Week,” Ken Lassman writes.

“A snowberry clearwing moth landed on my leg while at the Prairie Park prairie, a timely reminder that this week is National Moth Week,” Ken Lassman writes.

Gray coneflower, Ratibida pinnata, is a long blooming native perennial whose name refers to the gray cone under the brown disk florets, here being visited by a bumblebee interested in their sweet nectar.

Here is a working dung beetle, pushing a large marble sized globe of dung with its hind legs to a patch of dirt, where it dug a hole and buried it.

Pollinators continue to carry pollen from flower to flower while being nourished by the nectar produced by the light eating plants in the win-win interdependence between, in this case, a bee and a butterfly milkweed.

This Snowberry clearwing, a member of the sphinx moth family, is attracted by the beautiful purple prairie clover flower found blooming in area prairies this time of year.

Monarda fistulosa, or beebalm, is a hardy, fragrant native wildflower loved by many pollinators, including this bumblebee.

There are many species of echinacea currently blooming across the state. In the east, the taller pallida species pictured here predominates. All are valued for their medicinal properties.

Put this on your bucket list: visit Ivan Boyd Prairie Preserve in June.

Look closely at the gnarly bark of this cottonwood and near the top you will see a 17 year cicada from Brood XIX, which extends into the eastern two columns of counties in Kansas, even though most maps don’t show them going this far west.

If you walk around a hackberry tree these days, listen and you will hear what sounds like a very light rain of sand dropping onto the leaves/ground … It’s poop from the hackberry butterfly caterpillar.

This is how a hedge apple begins: as a green cluster of flowers bunched together, waiting to be wind pollinated from a male tree nearby, which sends out the pollen that fertilizes the flowers, producing a seed near the core of the hedge apple.

The blues and pinks of the spiderwort are a welcome sight in prairies this time of year, something well worth finding. While you’re there, look for starry eyed grass, wild hyacinth and the beginning of oxeye daisies and more.

Even though woods are closing in as oaks and hickories are unfurling new leaves, there are still some woodland wildflowers surprises to be found, such as this showy orchid, found adjacent to an eastern Kansas creek’s rich soil.

Papaws are found in native woodlands as an understory tree, meaning that they only grow 10-20 feet tall, in the shade of the much taller trees that make up the dominant overstory canopy. Papaw’s chocolate colored blossoms can be found right now, hanging like bells on the branches.