Kaw Valley Almanac

If you’re a gardener and see this caterpillar chomping down your dill, by all means let it eat as much as it wants because it will mature into a beautiful swallowtail butterfly.

This time of year it is not uncommon to have isolated storms that dump multiple inches of rain in isolated spots, but little to nothing elsewhere.

Sphinx moths are typically most active around dusk or even at night. This one was caught gathering nectar from the blossoms of the late-blooming Sullivant’s milkweed in broad daylight.

Butterfly milkweed is one of the most spectacular of the native milkweeds blooming now. There are nine butterfly species that eat the milkweed as caterpillars, then drink the nectar as adults, pollinating the flowers on the side.

Look closely and you’ll see a pair of great spangled fritillary butterflies and also a bumblebee. Milkweeds are pollinator magnets.

The hackberry butterfly can be found near many woodlands that contain hackberry trees right now. They are happy to sun themselves on your body!

Here is the wonderful zebra swallowtail, found in the eastern tier of counties in Kansas, including Douglas County where this photo was taken.

The large milkweed beetle is colorful for the same reason monarch butterflies are: to warn potential predators that their milkweed diet makes them poisonous and not worth eating.

Spiderwort is a perennial native wildflower that has started blooming in area prairies.

The incredible fuchsia pink of the prairie phlox wildflower is showing up in area prairies, joined by prairie violets, lingering creamy wild indigo, puccoons, verbena and many others on the verge of joining them.

The buckeye is found in native oak hickory woodlands in the eastern third of the state and is now blooming. These pretty flowers will eventually produce hard black buckeye seeds that some people keep in their pockets for good luck.

Beautiful luna moths, who in the caterpillar stage feed on but don’t harm walnuts and hickories, probably gain protection from toxic juglone present in the sap of the tree.

Five years ago, this redbud was in full bloom on March 31 in northeastern Kansas. This year, this tree will be looking the same at the beginning of next week. There is much yearly variability in our “continental” climate.