8. Restoring Bottomland Prairie 8: Creek Field, Summer 2015

Eastern Gammagrass
(Tripsacum dactyloides)

How exciting it is to see perennials emerging in the Creek Field!

Eastern Gammagrass may have sent up leaves last year, but it didn't bloom.   This year it bloomed by the dozens!

Sawtooth Sunflower bloomed last year but the season was almost over before I learned to tell it apart from other sunflowers.   This year I'm doing better, learning to spot the tell-tale details of leaf & bract.   Now it leaps out at me, even from afar:  A kind of windblown appearance (as pictured in the photo below), even on a still day, as if always caught in a high wind.

Sawtooth Sunflower
(Helianthus grosseserratus)

Disappeared photos have reappeared!!

Celebration!!   I have been able to re-post earlier photos of the Creek Field restoration.   So cancel the "bummer" described below!!
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Bummer!   My blog photos were mediated by flinthills.com, my previous email provider.   When flinthills.com had to cease its operations, my photos lost their ability to materialize before our eyes.  

Knowing this loss was a possibility, I had switched my blog entries to a new blog supported by my gmail.    But apparently, their fatal link to flinthills.com was switched along with them.

I am especially sad about the loss of photo documentation of the restoration of the Creek Field.   I will try to re-document as much as possible and update with new photos.

The Creek Field is amazing!!   Strange powers are at work!!   I'll get to work to re-tell and tell anew as much of the story as possible.

--Margy

7. Restoring Bottomland Prairie 7: By September, Annual Weeds Predominate

Creek Field dominated by horseweed,
thistles, & foxtails.
Indian Blanket peeks through at bottom left.

Gaillardia pulchella amid the foxtails

Photos taken on Sept. 24, 2013 show the Creek Field awash in annual & biennial weeds--foxtails, horseweed, and thistles.   Still, some wildflowers, such as this Indian Blanket (Gaillardia pulchella) persist, while the riparian buffer next to the Creek Field shows the good things that are in store.   That buffer, seeded back to native 5 years ago, used to look like the Creek Field--choked with annual weeds.   But now the native grasses are coming to the fore.  The contrast between the new and maturing restoration is evident in the photo below.

To the left of the pathway is the newly seeded Creek Field,
dominated by annual weeds.  On the right, is the riparian buffer,
seeded 5 years ago.   Native perennials predominate!!! 

6. Restoring Bottomland Prairie 6: Early Summer: Coreopsis

The Creek Field, July 7, 2013   Scott Bean Photo

 Coreopsis tinctoria comes to the fore in late June and early July.   However, tucked in among these gorgeous native annuals and already visible are the foxtails that later in the summer will come to tower over the flowers.   Still, this first stage in prairie restoration is amazing--this cascade of beauty--lavish, prodigal, overwhelmingly generous--as if there were no limit to the amazements to come!

Mama Turkey Vulture comes and goes

Here is a link to a video of the Turkey Vulture nesting under the Guesthouse walkway.

http://youtu.be/3JARGOCXzlA

She's a quiet neighbor!

--Margy

Turkey Vulture Nesting under Guest House Walkway

 These are Turkey Vulture eggs!  There is a lady vulture nesting under the walkway at the Guest House.   She explodes up out of the sunken patio whenever anyone approaches the house.   I have put up a trail camera.   If we get video of her coming and going, I'll post it tomorrow.
--Margy 

 Many thanks to Mark Mayfield, of the Kansas State University Herbarium, for identifying the plants at the left, as they appeared on the edge of Jerry's Pond (NE corner of Bird Runner) one autumn day.  The upper plant is in the mustard family, a member of the genus Rorippa, known as a Yellowcress.   The lower one is an aquatic Veronica, perhaps Veronica anagallis-aquatica.

What intrigued me was how the two species companioned each other, all along the pond edge, as shown below. 

Mark's service to the community is outstanding, as he helps us amateurs get to know the natural world!   Thank you, Mark!