June Grass

I know it's July but today I picked seeds of June grass at the Nature Conservancy site of Weaver Dunes. I picked two half gallon empty milk jugs of June grass.

I was so glad the sky was overcast because we were very warm. By the time we finished at 1 p.m. the temperature was 85 degrees. We had a nice breeze. An Eastern towhee sang for us while we worked.

Our group included a dozen people. Some from Winona, some from Rochester, and some from Minneapolis. This is blazing star. We could have picked hoary puccoon seeds but those are hard to find without the flowers.

We found white and purple prairie clover.

These are partridge peas. I had a good day out on the prairie today!

 

Trempelau

Today I went to Trempelau National Wildlife Refuge. This is a 15 minute drive from my house and across the Mississippi into Wisconsin. Black locust trees were in bloom and the air smelled so sweet.

I saw sandhill cranes, Baltimore Orioles, Northern mockingbird, Northern Waterthrush, common yelowthroat, scarlet tanager, yellow warblers, gray catbirds, house wrens, song sparrow, field sparrow, red-eyed vireos, Canadian geese, American robins, blue jays, red winged black birds, tree sparrows and great blue herons. Someone else reported seeing a nighthawk here yesterday but I didn't see any.

This is spiderwort.

This is white campion. I loved pulling these flowers apart when I was young.

Slender leafy spurge

Yellow salsify

Driving on the wildlife loop I saw more lupine than I have ever seen before. These are native lupine. Some hills were covered in beautiful purple lupine.

I would have guessed false Solomon seal but my phone app says it is Solomon's plume.

I like the name of this one - mouse eared chickweeds.

I walked out on an isthmus on the Pine Creek nature trail. Minnesota is far is the distance. I only got 3 woodticks today. I found two of them crawling up my leg while I was parked with the door open reading on my phone.

 

Top Notch Food

 Today was the final day of the nature convention in Saint Peter, Minnesota. I was up early. I checked out of my hotel and was the first one ready for bird watching. We saw blue birds. We saw a blue bird chasing a squirrel that approached his nest box. That squirrel was running away lickety split. We saw a hummingbird perched on a branch. We saw wood ducks, mallards, and great blue herons flying. We saw robins, field sparrows, chipping sparrows, and clay colored sparrows. We saw downy wood peckers and Tennessee warblers. In total we saw 24 species of birds. Later we had classes. I took one on harvesting fiddle head ferns (ostrich ferns). I took another on plant pressing. I made a greeting card and a book mark. I also made my own small plant press into which I put lilac flowers and fern leaves. Those should be dry in about 3 weeks. My last class was incorporating Indigenous culture into presentations. After that we had lunch and a wrap up session. Food at Gustavus Adolphus College was top notch. One of the servers knew I was a vegetarian and went out of her way to make sure I had enough to eat. Next year the conference will be at the arboretum at Saint John's University.

Nest Construction

This morning I went on a bird hike at the Gustavus Adolphus arboretum. We saw a Swainson's thrush, a black and white warbler, robins, downy woodpeckers, gold finches, Tennessee warblers, yellow warbler, Harris sparrow and a great blue  heron. But the best thing we saw was super tiny and far away from the path. One young woman spotted a hummingbird nest on an oak tree. We watched as the hummingbird came in and out of the nest. She was building a nest for her young ones. This was astonishing. A group of ten of us watched for at least ten minutes. I had other classes today. One was on nature journaling and sketching. One was on moths. That guy had thousands of pictures of moths. I had another class on plant medicine. The teacher is Native and she has a store in Mankato. She studied plant medicine from her grandparents on both sides. She studied at the Rosebud reservation and the Pine Ridge reservation. She made each of us a bag of tea. I chose the sleeping/calming tea. Any day where I can learn something is a good day.

 

Stuff I Saw On My Walk Today

Walking around Lake Winona today I, for the first time in my life, found some Dutchman's breeches. I have looked for these before but never found them.

I also found a leucistic robin too.

Usually when I walk around the lake I see up to a dozen turtles. Today, because the trees haven't leafed out, I saw a grand total of 87 turtles. Some were painted turtles and some were map turtles.

 

Annelies Frank

This houseboat comes with a pet coot. Here the coot is next to the dock between the house and the road.

We visited the Rek Museum to see the art work on display. The place was crowded with tourists and school groups. After that we had lunch at a cafe in the subway system.

At 2 p.m. we had an Anne Frank walking tour. We walked around the Jewish Quarter. Anne's read name was Annelies. This is at the memorial for the Jews and Roma who died in World War II.

This memorial is for the deaf people murdered by the Nazis. The location is outside the deaf school. The deaf school is now an art school.

As the Nazis took away more and more civil liberties the dock workers had enough and had a strike. All those involved in the strike were killed. More civil liberties were taken away. And the Dutch resistance grew.

There is a part of town called Dam Square. This was the original center of town and where they first dam was built. This is a war memorial. The chained people in the center of the statue represent the downtrodden. The men with barking dogs on the sides represents the fight against oppression. The woman above holding a child represents a peaceful future. Then we toured the Anne Frank house. Getting a ticket to tour the house is very difficult. When I was here ten years ago we couldn't get a ticket so I was happy to have one now. When we got to the part of the building where the family was actually hiding, people got very quiet and respectful. This was a moving experience that not everyone gets to enjoy.

We got home and our houseboat was warm from all the sunshine today. I left the door open so the hot air could escape. Our coot came by for a look see.

 

Lights Out

Last night I attended an Audubon meeting here in Winona. The topic was light pollution. We watched a 35 minute documentary called Lights Out In Texas. Next we heard from a Winona State Professor who studies astronomy specifically when two objects collide in space. She also knows about light pollution because twenty years ago she had a student who was interested in light pollution in Winona and he also happened to have a pilot license. She showed us pictures of light pollution over the last five decades. Light pollution for the most part is worse. According to her figures, 60 to 80 percent of today's children will never see the Milky Way because of light pollution. Winona State has done much to reduce light pollution. They replaced their outdoor lights with lights that shine only down. Also, the lights go dim unless someone walking by triggers the light to come on fully.  The residential parts of Winona are fairly dark. The lightest places are automotive dealerships and big box stores like Walmart and Target.  According to her, light pollution is better but there is still room for improvement.

 

 

On My Head

Today, on my way back home after a funeral, I stopped by Como Park Observatory to breathe in some fragrant humid air and look at the plants. My first stop was in the tropical room. This is the room where you can see a sloth in a tree before the exit. I went in and walked over to the tank where three turtles were swimming. I looked up and saw three yellow birds in the tree above my head. Then I noticed the tiles below my feet were dotted with bird droppings. Before I could look up again I felt something wet land on my head. I looked at a young mother and her two year old daughter and asked, "Did I just get pooped on?" The mother couldn't see anything but when I pulled my hand through my hair I found some brown residue. Disgusting. I walked away from that exhibit and on to the next. Before I left I thought I would visit the statue at the center of the observatory and rest on a bench. As I got up to leave I recognized a woman standing at the next bench. I said hello. We used to work together 15 years ago. After that pleasant exchange I drove home to shampoo my hair. 

 

 

Izumi Crane Observation Center

Yesterday we drove 4 hours north and east to the Izumi Crane Observation Center in the Kagoshima Prefecture.

This differs from the crane center in Wisconsin. These cranes (and crows) are not caged. They come here willingly. The center is adjacent to the sea. Some cranes winter here from Siberia. This is migration season.

There can be as many as 10,000 cranes in these rice fields.

Here are hooded cranes, white necked cranes, sandhill cranes, Siberian cranes and Demoiselle cranes.

So many cranes eating rice.

Burlap sacks of rice are ripped open and dumped on the roads between the rice fields.

 

River Walk

Yesterday evening the weather was warm so we took a stroll from the house down to the river. We saw a grey heron and at least a dozen Eurasian wigeons. We saw a couple Eurasian coots. We saw a small shorebird that was bigger than a sanderling but we couldn't quite figure out what it was.  We saw brown eared Bulbul and black kites. We saw a couple of little egrets (with yellow feet) and four Japanese cormorant.  All in all, it was a productive bird walk.

 

 

Birds In Sasebo

This morning I walked the grand girls to the bus stop. We went for another walk through the rice fields. We saw black kites circling over head. I saw a dozen black kites. We saw four wagtails flying. It could have been a Japanese wagtail but this country has 4 species of wagtails so I am not sure. We saw several Great Egrets (all in white) and coots in a water filled ditch between the fields. We saw a dozen ring billed ducks and some mallards. Then we walked to a grocery store. Being at the grocery store and unable to read the ingredients was overwhelming. Now I have downloaded Google Translate onto my phone which will make things easier. Later we picked Granddaughter #2 up from school. We hung out at the school playground for an hour until Granddaughter #1 was released from her after school activity. Then we watched for another hour as the girls could blow off steam. Man, oh man, where do these kids get all their energy? I am exhausted just watching them running and chasing. Once we got home they started making gingerbread houses and I started to make dinner. Even when I used my Google translate I couldn't figure out how to turn on the stove. We had a great dinner and a fun time using scissors to make snowflakes. I look forward to what ever adventures tomorrow will bring.

80% Sure

Today the temperature got up to 65 degrees so I put on a pair of shorts and walked around Lake Winona again. I saw a nest in a tree. I am on the side of the lake that is farthest from downtown and closest to Highway 61.

I am 80% sure this is a nest from a pair of Baltimore Orioles.

 

Blazing Star And Lead Plant

This morning and part of the afternoon I traveled to the Nature Conservancy office at Weaver Dunes to collect prairie seeds for a new section of land that is being converted from farm to prairie. The weather was foggy and cool and I started out with a sweatshirt and two fleece jackets. When I left I had just the sweatshirt on.

We had about 25 people helping. We had five priority species to focus on plus ten secondary species. I decided to focus on two priority species.

I filled a quarter of a paper envelope with lead plant seeds. The orange is my water bottle. The blue are my shoes. Lead plant can have roots 10 to 15 feet in length. Lead plant prefers dry and sandy soil. Lead plant is in the legume family so it secures nitrogen in the soil.

We collected a couple of gallons of blazing star. I started out putting the seeds in an envelope but quickly dropped that idea and put the blazing star seeds into a milk jug I had attached to my pants. Monarch butterflies and other butterflies appreciate blazing star. While we were working a half dozen bald eagles flew over our heads-a good omen, not? One guy found the shell of a map turtle.

 

Bird Club

 Tonight I went to my first meeting of the Winona bird club. Our speaker was a woman who is an expert on Prairie Island. She told us where to find which birds. She has seen 67 species of warblers. She told us about the nature trail. Now I want to go down there and walk that trail. There is a lake called Hunter Lake.  There, in the spring, the lake thaws before the river and you can find a large variety of green winged teal, canvas backs, and ruddy ducks. She told us which birds nest on the island. The city of Winona has partnered with the Minnesota Land Trust and will develop a plan to restore the island and remove the invasive species. I look forward to the next meeting. This is a fun group.

Kayaking

 

I had a hard time getting my kayak out of storage but now it is out.

The lovely lotus blossoms are abundant on Lake Winona. The only other places I have seen them are at Como Park and on the Mississippi in Cottage Grove.

Today was a fine day to be out on the water. I saw Canadian geese, bald eagles, tree swallows, a great blue heron, a muskrat, two turtles (one was a rather large softshell turtle), many fish. As I kayaked along I could see people walking or biking on the path.

The boat sticker says 2023 so I had better get that updated pronto.

Boat Tour

This afternoon I went on the Winona boat tour. We saw 6 bald eagles, 3 deer running, and a mink swimming across the river. We saw a gaggle of geese and a waddling of Mallards.

Our tour lasted 90 minutes.

We headed up river towards the town of Fountain City. Here we are approaching lock and dam 5A.

This used to be parked next to the U of M in Minneapolis. Now someone in Fountain City bought it and intends to rent it out for weddings or other gatherings.

 

Whitewater State Park

Yesterday I drove 25 minutes north and west to visit Whitewater State Park again. Many years have passed since my last visit. I walked the trails. I saw a guy fly fishing for trout. I saw an indigo bunting and a rose colored grosbeak. I visited all 5 camper cabins. I walked past many  camp sites. They have wild parsnip everywhere. This rogue vegetable plant has spread all over. If you touch it with bare skin and then are exposed to sunlight you can get a painful rash. I usually think of vegetables as innocent but not this one.