Wolf Road Prairie Monarchs: A Wing and a Prayer

“Coming in on a wing and a prayer, what a show…”–Harold Adamson

*****

Sunday morning dawns bright, windy, and clear. A lone green darner dragonfly zips away as Jeff and I step onto the crumbling sidewalk—one of many sidewalks that run through the 82-acre Wolf Road Prairie remnant in Westchester, Illinois.

Sidewalks? In a prairie? It’s a part of Wolf Road Prairie’s heritage. The sidewalks were built on this remnant prairie as part of a planned development. The prairie was subdivided into almost 600 lots in the 1920s. Then, the Great Depression hit, and ended the project before more construction was completed. A lucky break for the tallgrass.

Later, proposed development in the 1970s was thwarted by the conservation-minded Save the Prairie Organization. Thanks to their work, and the work of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Salt Creek Greenway Association, and Forest Preserve District of Cook County, we have this amazing designated Illinois Nature Preserve to hike through this morning.

Although there are more than 360 native plant species as part of Wolf Road Prairie’s mosaic of prairie, wetland, and savanna for us to admire and identify…

…we are here today to hike and see what dragonflies are out and about.

What you look for isn’t always what you find.

Monarch! Jeff points to a butterfly nectaring on one of the sawtooth sunflowers that floods the prairie with color. We enjoy the contrast of the butterfly’s bright orange and black against the yellow for a moment, and then…Another one over here!

A monarch over our heads. I point. Here’s another one! A monarch brushes my shoulder on its way to the goldenrod. Suddenly, we see monarchs everywhere.

As we hike, butterflies pop up from the prairie wildflowers, disturbed in the act of fueling up for the long journey south to Mexico.

Others dance their butterfly ballet across the sky, sometimes singly, other times in twos. As we hike, we are hit with the realization. This is monarch migration.

In my almost six decades, I’ve only seen this phenomenon once before — at Kankakee Sands at dusk in northwestern Indiana. On September 18 in 2018, we had stopped on the way home from visiting family in Indiana with hopes to see The Nature Conservancy’s new bison herd. Instead, we saw monarchs. Hundreds of them. (Read about that experience here.)

Now, on Wolf Prairie, we hike and we count. Then, we give up. Too many monarchs. We just enjoy them. After an hour, we reluctantly head home. But the images of butterflies and wildflowers linger.

Jeff and I talk about the monarch migration off and on all day. Finally, around dinner time, we look at each other and nod. Let’s go back. We decide to”borrow” two of the grandkids for the trip. We want them to see this epic gathering—one we have talked about with them since they were born.

But—will the monarchs still be there, hours later?

They are.

Nectaring on sunflowers.

Juicing up on tall boneset.

Dining on pasture thistle.

Sipping from goldenrod.

Monarchs in motion. Seeing them on so many different wildflowers is a good reminder that monarchs need more than milkweed. A lot more. They need fall blooming plants that will provide nectar as they travel thousands of miles to their final destination.

They need what we find on a healthy tallgrass preserve like Wolf Road Prairie. It’s these preserved natural areas that help ensure the monarch’s survival.

There are such wonders to be found in the world.

But you have to go look.

When you do, maybe you’ll feel as we did after seeing the monarchs.

Hopeful for the future.

*******

The opening quote is from Coming in On a Wing and a Prayer, a song popular during World War 2. It was written by Harold Adamson with music composed by Jimmy McHugh, and made the top 20 bestselling songs of 1943.

******

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby and taken at Wolf Road Prairie (top to bottom): Wolf Road Prairie September 13; sidewalk through the prairie; sawtooth sunflowers (Helianthus grosseserratus); biennial gaura (Gaura biennis); monarch leaving sawtooth sunflower (Helianthus grosseserratus) after nectaring; Jeff hikes Wolf Road Prairie during monarch migration; monarch (Danaus plexippus) nectaring on sawtooth sunflower (Helianthus grosseserratus); hiking Wolf Prairie during monarch migration; monarch sailing over Wolf Road prairie; monarch (Danaus plexippus) nectaring on sawtooth sunflower (Helianthus grosserratus); counting monarchs (Danaus plexippus); monarch (Danaus plexippus) nectaring on tall boneset (Eupatorium altissimum); monarch (Danaus plexippus) nectaring on pasture thistle (Cirsium discolor); monarch (Danaus plexippus) nectaring on Canada goldenrod (Solidago canadensis); exploring the prairie; mixed blooms; hiking Wolf Road Prairie; monarch (Danaus plexippus) on sawtooth sunflower (Helianthus grosseserratus); finding monarchs at Wolf Road Prairie.

*******

SPECIAL EVENT! DuPage County friends —DuPage Monarch Project is sponsoring a “Parks for Pollinators” bioblitz through 9/20. Click here to find out how you can contribute your observations and make a difference in the natural world! Simply take photos of pollinators and upload them to iNaturalist, a free App for your phone. Have fun and help this great effort.

“Nature Writing Online” begins Monday, October 5, through The Morton Arboretum. Want to commit to improving and fine-tuning your writing for six weeks? This is a great opportunity to jump start your blog, your book, or your journal writing while working online from home, supplemented with three evenings of live evening Zoom classes on alternate weeks. Class size is limited; register here.

Just released in June! Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History.

Order now from your favorite indie bookstore such as the Morton Arboretum Store and The Bookstore of Glen Ellyn, or online at bookshop.org, direct from Northwestern University Press (use coupon code NUP2020 for 25% off), or other book venues. Thank you for supporting small presses, bookstores, and writers during this chaotic time.

Want more prairie? Follow Cindy on Facebook, Twitter (@phrelanzer) and Instagram (@phrelanzer). Or enjoy some virtual trips to the prairie through reading Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of the Prairie Spirit and The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction. 

Much Ado About Milkweed

“A fallen blossom–returning to the bough, I thought…But no, a butterfly.”

–Arakida Moritake

***

What’s all the fuss about milkweed?  Well…what’s not to love?

There’s butterfly milkweed’s day-glo orange. Grab your sunglasses.

Get a pop of prairie color—with a pollinator—from purple milkweed.

Enjoy the pretty-in-pink of prairie milkweed, sometimes called Sullivant’s milkweed.

In the fall, the milkweeds smoke silks into the autumn air, sending seeds aloft.

When the milkweed’s seeds are spent, the canoe-like seedpods are endless vehicles for creativity and imagination.

Other than the visual and tactile pleasure the blooms give us, our 19 native Illinois species of milkweed are a veritable Noah’s Ark for monarch butterflies. Although monarchs sip nectar from a variety of plants like the bee balm below, they lay their eggs only on milkweed.

When the monarch butterfly larvae (caterpillars) hatch, they munch on milkweed. Without the milkweeds, there would be no monarchs.

Scientists at Cornell University tell us to pair milkweeds with fall blooming, nectar-rich plants such as goldenrods. Why?  Goldenrod and other fall nectar plants provide food for the monarch butterfly’s epic migration to Mexico in the fall.  Evidently, goldenrod is an important life-giving flower for monarchs.

But it all begins with milkweed. Such a simple act of hope—to plant a flower.

After all, how often can we help save a species while, in the process, make the world more beautiful?

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  purple milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prairie milkweed (Asclepias sullivantii),Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; milkweed silks, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; milkweed pod with snow, East Side prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; monarch on bee balm (Monarda fistulosa);  monarch caterpillar, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  monarch butterfly on goldenrod (Solidago canedensis), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  common milkweed, (Asclepias syriaca) with false sunflowers (Heliopsis helianthoides), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL.

Arakida Moritake (1473-1549), whose words begins this essay, was a Japanese poet who wrote about the natural world.

A 2015 Prairie Retrospective

May you never forget what is worth remembering; May you never remember what is best forgotten. — old Irish blessing

Every prairie year has its own personality. Every season in the tallgrass is full of surprises.

Thank you for hiking the prairie with me on Tuesdays in 2015. I hope you’ll enjoy this retrospective of the Illinois prairie, month by month.  Who knows what wonderful things are in store for us in 2016?

January

Winter is a good time for naps, as these shaggy bison know. Bringing buffalo to Nachusa Grasslands in Franklin Grove, IL,  was a culmination of a dream for many prairie restorationists. In 2015, we watched the herd grow and a new bison unit open.

February

Windy winter skies bring their own motion to the prairie, rattling the brittle grasses and seedheads.

March

Fire is to prairie as water is to life. Because we suppress wildfires, prairie restorationists must used prescribed burns to ensure the prairie regularly goes up in flames. Only a few weeks after all is soot and ashes, the prairie turns emerald with new growth. It’s a resurrection of sorts. A chance for new beginnings that inspires even the most jaded and cynical observer.

April

A great egret keeps watch over a wet prairie, scanning for small frogs and fish.

May

As spring breezes ripple prairie ponds and streams, the sounds of insects, frogs, and birds add their notes to the tallgrass soundtrack. Dragonflies emerge.

June

Pale purple coneflowers  open, heralding the beginning of summer on the prairie. Once revered for their medicinal value, today we appreciate them for their verve and color.

Like badminton birdies, aren’t they?

Moist conditions helped queen of the prairie have a banner year in 2015.

July

Dragonflies are all around us in the warmer months. In July, they clamor for our attention with their numbers and bejeweled colors.  Here, a blue dasher looks out at the prairie with its complex eyes. Below, an American rubyspot hangs over a stream rushing through the tallgrass.

August

Bee balm rampaged across the prairie in 2015; monarchs sipping beebalm nectar approved. There was good news for monarch butterflies this year — from the tollroads in Illinois which will fund milkweed plantings; to increased numbers of monarchs this season.

September

Without volunteers, the prairie restoration efforts in the Midwest would be a moot point. Here, a volunteer from an Illinois church group collects seeds on one prairie that will be used to plant a different site.

October

Asters are the floral bon voyage to the prairie blooming season. It’s bittersweet to see their purples, whites, and golds across the prairie. We know winter is just around the corner.

The goldenrods join the chorus of goodbyes each autumn.

November

Milkweed, including this common milkweed, got a lot of attention in 2015 for its value to monarchs. Did you plant some? If not, there’s always next year.

December

Who says December has to be colorless? In some years, the prairie palette seems to catch fire as winter begins its slow drain of colors from the tallgrass. The oranges, yellows, and reds are a reminder of the prescribed fires that will burn in the spring; waking the prairie up to a new season of life.

I began my first blog entry this year with the image above; it seems fitting to close out this prairie season with it.

Looking forward to hiking the tallgrass on Tuesdays with you in 2016.

Happy New Year!

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): bison in the snow, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; winter sky, NG; prescribed burn, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; after the fire, SP; great egret, NG; pond life, NG; Echinacea pallida, SP; Echinacea pallida, SP; queen of the prairie (Filipendula rubra); blue dasher dragonfly, SP; American rubyspot, NG; bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) and monarch butterfly; volunteer, SP; smooth blue asters (Symphyotrichum laeve), SP; New England asters (Symphyotrichumnovae-angliae) and goldenrod (Solidago spp. — there were several species represented in this particular patch where I photographed, and the IDs are uncertain) SP; common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) DuPage County Forest Preserve; late December grasses, NG.

Old Irish Blessing: original source unknown

A Jingle for Gentians

Blue ones

cream ones

some are sort of pink.

Deep in the tallgrass

they’re gone in just a blink.

Unlike some other blooms

They may be a tight squeeze

That’s why gentian pollinators

tend toward bumblebees.

Amazing diversity

bison, butterflies, and flowers,

One of the reasons why the

prairie’s where I spend my hours.

If you haven’t been out yet

in the tallgrass  this season

I hope you’ll find that gentians

give you a reason.

***(Cream ones blooming now….. blue and pink ones in bloom soon…)

All photos by Cindy Crosby: Top to bottom: prairie gentian, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum (Gentiana puberulenta); cream or yellowish gentian (Gentiana flavida), SP; stiff gentian (pink) (Gentiana quinquefolia), SP;  bottle gentian, Nachusa Grasslands (Gentiana andrewsii); cream gentian fading, SP;, tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris), SP; bumblebee in cream gentian, SP; bumblebee outside of cream gentian, SP; bison, NG; monarch on rosinweed (Silphium integrifolium), SP; woman working on prairie, SP; common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and tallgrass, NG.

Got Milkweed?

I can’t fix the economy. I can’t create more jobs. If I had to vote tomorrow, I’d never untangle the prolific muddle that is the current slate of presidential candidates.

World hunger? Seems overwhelming. Climate change? Ditto.

But there is one small thing I can do to make a difference this summer: Plant milkweed.

If you missed the news, monarch butterflies are losing numbers. Big numbers. Agricultural land use, pesticides, and loss of habitat have decimated their populations. Monarchs are tattered. Fragile. Barely holding on.

What can we do?

Plant flowers. Milkweed, to be specific. Here in Illinois, we have more than a dozen native milkweeds. Some are the familiar common pink, sweetly-scented globe-shaped blooms. Others are quite different, such as this whorled milkweed.

I love the bright orange butterfly weed, also in the milkweed family. Think how pretty it would look in the garden! With a little purple prairie clover.

All these milkweeds have one thing in common: They are the host plants for monarch butterfly eggs. Once the caterpillars hatch, milkweed plants provide them with life-giving nourishment.

Munch, munch.

The math is simple.

No milkweed = No monarchs.

Don’t have a backyard, you say? Help restore a prairie or plant a butterfly garden with milkweed in a city park, and you’re helping the monarch butterflies.

I know, I know. Restoring a prairie or planting milkweed in our backyards and neighborhoods  is not going to solve some of the big problems that our world faces. But each milkweed plant is one small step toward hope. One way to make a tangible difference where we live.

One tiny spark that can ignite a sky full of butterflies. Do we want to passively accept another loss of something fleeting and lovely?

Not all of us can do great things. But we can all do small things with great love. The small changes we can make give us hope for greater changes we can’t make alone.

If only all the solutions to our problems began with planting more flowers.

What a beautiful world it would be.

All photos by Cindy Crosby: (top to bottom): bee on common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; monarch butterfly on rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium), Schulenberg Prairie at The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; whorled milkweed (Asclepias verticillata) , SP; butterfly weed, SP; monarch butterfly caterpillar on butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) , SP; volunteer restoring tallgrass prairie, SP; monarch butterfly on bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), NG; monarch butterfly on rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium), SP.

“Do small things with great love” quote is adapted from Mother Teresa (1910-1997).

A Wing and a Prayer

Do you know that Illinois has a state insect? No, not the mosquito. The monarch butterfly.

Monarchs are familiar to those of us who spend time on tallgrass prairies, and probably the most familiar butterfly to people in general. Yet, at a recent class I taught, only about half of a group of 40 adults could name the monarch butterfly when I showed them a photo.

Hmmm.

I was surprised. As a kid with a butterfly net, these frequent fliers were the first butterfly name I learned. They were fairly unmistakable, although the viceroy butterfly is very similar.

But the size (monarchs are bigger) and wing pattern (viceroy’s have black lines toward the bottom of the wing that are different) help distinguish them both. Look at the two photos. See the difference in the wing markings?

Monarchs, unlike viceroys, are known for their wanderlust. Every fall, they leave the snow and frigid temps of Chicago and head to Mexico, where they overwinter. Their offspring wing their way back to Illinois in the spring. How do they find their way home? No one knows. It’s a mystery of the best sort, a reminder that we haven’t figured out everything.

It’s no secret to prairie lovers that the monarch butterfly is losing numbers. Big numbers. So much, in fact, that butterfly aficionados recently requested that it be given endangered species protection. It appears that the monarch hasn’t got a prayer when up against pesticides, used in agriculture. Why?

Monarchs lay eggs. And not just anywhere. They look for plants in the milkweed family. When the caterpillar, or larvae emerges, it munches on milkweed leaves until it’s time for it to form a chrysalis. It eventually appears as a black and orange butterfly. But the milkweeds —which are treated by us as, well, weeds — are vanishing. And with the milkweeds go the monarchs. Imagine how we’d feel if our grocery stores vanished overnight! Monarchs are in trouble.

With this in mind, the big news in Illinois is that state authorities will plant milkweed along tollways. This should establish more habitat for the monarch butterflies. Although I wonder about the juxtaposition of butterflies with semis racing along at 80 mph, I like the good intention. Hundreds of miles of asphalt tollway could be flanked by milkweed blooms.

The plight of the monarch is a reminder of the importance of tallgrass prairies, which in Illinois, may contain up to 19 species of native milkweed. Prairies and monarchs are like peanut butter and jelly. They belong together. This spring, I’ll plant more milkweed in my garden. It adds beauty and interest, and I’ll lend a helping hand to a species in trouble at the same time. I’ll also volunteer more restoration hours on my local prairies; maintaining small life rafts of milkweed for the monarchs.

I had to update my I-Pass at the Tollway Authority offices this month. I confess, as I waited in line to straighten out my account, I grumbled a bit less. I felt a little warmer toward this state governmental agency, thinking about the monarch butterflies.

( All photos by Cindy Crosby. From top to bottom: monarch, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; viceroy on mountain mint, Big Woods Forest Preserve, Batavia, IL; butterfly milkweed, SP/MA; milkweed pod, author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn,IL: monarch on aster, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; West Chicago Prairie in March, West Chicago, IL)