Grass Skippers Grace the Grassland!

 Restoring prairie is a lot of hard work but it's also a thrill--especially when prairie-associated wildlife start to return.   It's been wildly exciting this summer to discover some new "Grass Skippers" here at Bird Runner--that's the name given the butterfly sub-family that uses grasses and sedges as caterpillar host plants.    The Grass Skippers below alighted in or near the bottomland prairie restoration in our Creek Field, next to McDowell Creek in Geary County, Kansas.

This Arogos Skipper (Atrytone arogos) came to get minerals from the stones and mud on the banks of McDowell Creek (August 2020):

 

Arogos Skipper caterpillars feed mostly on Big Bluestem and sometimes on Little Bluestem.   They weave two leaves together with silk to create a little shelter inside which they eat and grow.   

This Byssus Skipper (Problema byssus) came to nectar on Echinacea Purpurea in the Creek Field (August 4, 2020):

Bysssus Skippers use Eastern Gamma Grass as their caterpillar food plant.   Eastern Gamma Grass has been mostly grazed out of native pastures in the Flint Hills--but it's abundant in our ungrazed Creek Field prairie restoration.  

This Dun Skipper (Euphyes vestris) was just basking on a leaf of Giant Ragweed in the Creek Field (August 4, 2020):

Dun Skippers' caterpillar food plants are sedges.   In this rainy year, sedges are flourishing in the Creek Field and in the uplands.

This Zabulon Skipper was basking on the leaf of a sunflower, Jerusalem Artichoke, in the Creek Field (June 9, 2020):

Zabulon Skipper caterpillars feed on a variety of grasses, including wild ryes and Wheatgrass.  

When native plants take hold, energy extends to other species, seen and unseen.   Believe it or not, it's something we humans can feel.  It's exhilarating!  These little Grass Skippers are messengers from a restored landscape, increasingly charged.

Buntings and Grosbeaks on McDowell Creek

 

 The creek is a magnet!   Here is an immature Indigo Bunting having a bath, while an adult Indigo Bunting sings overhead:

Adult male Indigo Buntings, unmistakable in their iridescent blue, come to feed on the weeds that spring up along the creek.  Below an adult male feeds on Green Foxtail, Marestail, and Barnyard Grass:

The female and immature Indigos have brown feathers designed to blend in.   Here the male is shadowed by a cryptically colored female or fledgling:

In the video below, a juvenile Painted Bunting also comes to bathe in the creek:

Meanwhile, a female Blue Grosbeak, accompanied by an immature or molting male, is drawn to the creek:  

A first-summer male Blue Grosbeak practices his chip call and little bit of song from the weeds along the creek.    The clip below catches him exercising his voice while perching safely on the Jerusalem Artichoke sunflowers and the Giant Ragweed that grew up on the gravel bar:

 

Goldfinches at McDowell Creek

 McDowell Creek has been a magnet for Goldfinches this summer--male Goldfinches, that is.  They come every evening to sing a little bit and drink from the creek.

The females are sitting on nests and don't leave until the youngsters fledge.   The males feed their mates with partially digested seeds.   I hope to see the moms and the new ones later in the summer or early in the fall.   

Butterflies Imbibing Minerals by McDowell Creek

Large butterflies--like Monarchs and swallowtails--often use McDowell Creek as a flight corridor, sailing past us, here one second, gone the next.  

But smaller butterflies have been landing on the shore, where they appear to be imbibing minerals from the mud and stones.    Here are some of those visitors.  Check out their amazingly long and agile proboscises (butterfly "tongues"):

The caterpillars of these butterflies need a variety of food plants:

Wild Indigo Duskywing:  Legumes, including the marvelous prairie plant, Blue Wild Indigo

Silvery Checkerspot:  Species in the Sunflower Family (Asteracea), including Echinacea and Rudbeckia

Red Admiral:  Nettles

Question Mark:  Elm and Hackberry

Pearl Crescent:  Species in the Sunflower Family (Asteraceae)

Silver Spotted Skipper:  Legumes

Eastern Tailed-Blue:  Legumes

All of those food-plants are growing at Bird Runner Wildlife Refuge.   So butterflies--we hope to see you again next year!

Local Musicians Find Refuge in McDowell Creek

During the hottest days of summer, the creek is a refuge.   Local musicians, looking for a safe outdoor space to gather during a pandemic, decided to play and sing next to (and in some cases in!) McDowell Creek:  

Local musicians jam while dusk falls on McDowell Creek, July 30, 2020.

But there are other singers on the creek, apart from Homo sapiens.   Dickcissels sing constantly, sometimes from the electrical wire above the creek.  Here a male Dickcissel belts out his song, accompanied by flowing water:

Dickcissels sing while these American Goldfinches come to drink.  The goldfinches also sing, sometimes from the same wire:

Some expert birders have identified this song as that of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak:

Meanwhile, all singers are accompanied by the original percussionists.  Here Blanchard's Cricket Frogs lay down quite a beat:

Let's store up this music to last us when the blustery winds of winter are what we hear instead.