Kaw Valley Almanac

This eagle is walking, looking to do a little fishing if it can get around the ice. This week, for most of Kansas, temperatures will be above freezing, which is good for tapping tree sap but not for skating.

Sycamore trees are white barked and easy to spot. Their smooth round seed balls stay on the trees all winter long and persist into the spring when they can be pulled off and thrown at a wall, exploding into seeds.

This cardinal brings a little color and entertainment to the new year. It’s not too late to set up a bird feeder; it might take some time for the birds to find it, but word travels fast.

Look closely: all those little black dots in the beautiful blue sky are robins. They are a fairly common in Kansas winters, with hundreds or even thousands in a flock.

Great blue herons can be spotted in winter. Their diet is mainly aquatic but they are happy to snatch a mouse, shrew or other rodent in the winter if the ice limits options.

This time of year is a great time to lie down in some tallgrass prairie remnant on a sunny day, and it will shield you from the wind and insulate you from the cold ground. See what you see in the deep, blue winter solstice sky.

There’s a certain beauty to the patterns and colors of prairie grasses this time of year. Look carefully and you’ll see red, yellow and orange seeds and green rosettes of next year’s growth.

The cold weather is pushing south, and snow geese are starting to fly into the area. Eagles are also flying into the state, since snow geese are one of their main food sources.

This squirrel is giving thanks to one of the hedge trees that has provided a bounteous supply of hedge apples this year.

A cottonwood tree is silhouetted in front of the incredible Northern Lights that graced the Kansas skies on Nov. 11. The pink, green and red bands are from oxygen atoms, excited at different altitudes.

Fallen leaves create important ground cover for many insects and overwintering critters, insulate the trees from the cold and grow many fungi, such as these tiny oak-leaf pinwheel mushrooms.

“I’ve run across several deer rubbing spots in area woods, and this heart-shaped rub pretty much says it all when it comes to the intentions of the rutting season,” Ken Lassman writes in this week’s Kaw Valley Almanac.

The fading sunset seems to be turning these big bluestem seedheads into silhouettes, squeezing the coppers, reds and yellow fall grass colors directly into the sky. Morning and evening walks reward the walker with a wide range of colors.

This has been a dry fall, with more muted leaf colors. Rain will brighten some, but many leaves are drying up, limiting further development.

This has been a dry fall, with more muted leaf colors. Rain will brighten some, but many leaves are drying up, limiting further development.