Note to readers: This week’s Tuesdays in the Tallgrass is a special Sunday edition! I’ll be back to publishing on Tuesdays and our regular schedule next week. Thanks, as always, for reading.
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“The starting point must be to marvel at all things, even the most commonplace.” — Carl Linnaeus
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When the impatiens open their conical orange and yellow freckled flowers to the delight of the ruby-throated hummingbirds and long-tongued bees, I know that summer is slipping toward autumn.
Look at enough impatiens’ blooms, and you’ll discover the holes chewed by bumblebees in search of nectar. You can imagine their thoughts: Why work so hard when there are shortcuts to be had?
It seems like an August kind of mentality; slow moving days, high humidity, blue skies and sunshine interspersed with some welcome rain. Listening to the zithering of the cicadas; watching fireflies from the back porch. So much to marvel over.
The ruby-throated hummingbirds work the cardinal flowers in my backyard, blurred streaks moving from scarlet to scarlet. Each year, I worry that I’ve lost the cardinal flowers, then splash! There they are popping up around the pond; scattered through my prairie patch.
Goldfinches work the cup plants for water and early seeds as monarch butterflies swarm the Joe Pye weed blooms that tower over my head.
The black swallowtails love the wild bergamot, as do the bumblebees and sphinx moths. This swallowtail below lost a bit of wing—to a bird, perhaps, or other predator—but still nimbly eludes me when I try to follow it deeper into the tallgrass.
Hiking the Belmont Prairie this week in Downer’s Grove, IL, I saw the first large groups of dragonflies massing —- for migration? It seems early. I’m unsure. Last year’s swarms came at the end of August. Almost all of the 80 or so individuals I count are green darner dragonflies; with a few golden wandering gliders mixed in. If you blow up this photo on your computer or phone, you’ll see at least 32 individuals silhouetted against the sky.
On the Schulenberg Prairie in Lisle, IL; the first New England aster opened this week like a purple omen, noting the seasonal transition in process. They always say “autumn” to me.
More late summer notes are struck in the ripening of seeds of the spring wildflowers, like prairie parsley (below). As August slides toward its inevitable conclusion, more blooms will be replaced by seeds, gradually tipping the balance from flowers to future progeny.
Tiny calico pennant dragonflies, less than the length of my pinky finger, chase the breezes, then alight for a moment on the grasses.
They’re often mirrored by a Halloween pennant or two close by, forging an uneasy truce for territories.
Each time I see these two species I wonder if it will be the last time, as their numbers taper off this month. In a week or two, they’ll only be memories.
The goldenrod opens, offering its sweet nectar to greedy insects.
The prairie oils the gears of transition. The compass plants point the way.
These inevitable transitions on the prairie remind me that change, even when not particularly welcome, shakes things up. Jolts us out of our complacency. Reminds us to marvel at what’s happening right now.
I’ve tried not to take the prairie for granted this summer season. Each day, each week, I marveled at the joys each particular day offered. But June and July went by too fast and now August seems to be half over. There’s melancholy in the lowering slant of sunshine; the tallgrass elbowing the wildflowers out of the way, the first gold leaf-coins dropping from the trees on the prairie’s edge.
A potent reminder to enjoy the marvels of every summer day on the prairie that we have left.
Let’s go!
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Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) a Swedish botanist, was dubbed the “Father of Taxonomy” and helped formalize the way we organize the natural world. Read more here.
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All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): orange jewelweed (Impatiens capensis), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; gray-headed coneflowers (Ratibida pinnata), author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum), Schulenberg Prairie savanna, Lisle, IL; black swallowtail butterfly (Papilio polyxenes) on bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; possibly early migration swarm of green darners and wandering gliders over the Belmont Prairie, Downers Grove, IL; New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prairie parsley seeds (Polytaenia nuttallii), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; calico pennant (Celithemis elisa), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Halloween pennant (Celithemis eponina), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; edge of the Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; early goldenrod (Solidago juncea) and chalcid wasp (Leucospis affinis), Belmont Prairie, Downer’s Grove, IL; compass plants (Silphium lacinatium), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; late boneset (Eupatorium serotinum), Belmont Prairie, Downer’s Grove, IL.
Thanks to Gerard Durrell for his great description of cicada music from My Family and other Animals.
Cindy’s speaking events and classes can be found at www.cindycrosby.com. Drop by!
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I pull off a dab of the sticky stuff and taste it. Refreshing! Native American children reportedly chewed this sap like Wrigley’s spearmint gum. I’m more cautious. It tastes good, but it is tough to scrape off my teeth. Once it’s on your fingers, you stick to everything you touch in the next hour.
Tuesdays in the Tallgrass 