Kaw Valley Almanac

When they first emerge, these Echinacea pallida ray flowers on the edge of the seed disk shoot skyward, then flatten out, finally relaxing enough to point down to the ground or even curve under toward the stalk.

Many roadsides are currently showcasing clusters of white dogwood blossoms. Many pollinators love their four-petaled flowers, including this summer azure butterfly.

It’s been a good year for blooming spiderworts, and you might still see a few of these, joined this week by echinacea, penstemons, daisy fleabane, and delphiniums, along with already blooming yarrows, oxeye daisy, and yellow sweet clover.

Oxeye daisy is a “naturalized” prairie wildflower that some consider invasive, but it is an important food source for many pollinators, such as this beetle.

This wild hyacinth was one of many blooming at the Prairie Park Nature Center prairie. Expect more wildflowers to be blooming this week.

Prairies are coming alive, as evidenced by the yellow star-eyed grass to the left, white strawberries, lower right, and wood betony, upper right.

The leaves of the walnut, on the left, emerge much later than the cottonwood. If you look carefully you will see a little splash of red from the cardinal perched among the walnut branches. Many migratory songbirds are returning right now, as are the tree leaves.

Green elm seeds, blooming redbuds, wind and rain were all in play across much of our area last week, as we head into the last week of April.

Groundplum milkvetch is a native legume currently found blooming in area prairies. The beautiful pea-like blossoms grow into tasty edible fruit later in the spring, so now is a good time to locate them.

Look closely and you’ll see a flock of turkeys picking over the newly burned prairie. It is always interesting to poke around a burned prairie.

Here are some raccoon tracks in the wet creekside soils, one of their favorite haunts. Wet weather this week should enhance your ability to see animal tracks, and even if it doesn’t rain where you are.

Leaves are emerging from woodland gooseberries in northeast Kansas, with a few false rue anemone emerging. The dry weather has meant a slower spring woodland wildflower season, but this week’s rains may change that, so go take a look!

Sandhill cranes migrate by the hundreds of thousands annually through Kansas and Nebraska. Now is the time to see them. Spring woodland wildflower plants have emerged as well.