Journal for September 30, 2025

Fall temperatures and flowers are here, and tree leaves are turning from green to yellow.

Cat’s Paw Prairie

The monarchs have been busy migrating. We’ve seen more on our afternoon walks than in the past few years – several days we’ve counted more than 100. We’re hoping that’s a sign of a good sized population, and that most of them will make it to Mexico.

Monarch resting on Prickly Ash

At the beginning of the month the monarchs’ favorite nectaring flowers were purple: native thistles and Blazing Star.

Monarch on Field Thistle

For a few weeks in the middle of the month they switched to yellow – especially Showy Goldenrod.

Now they’re back to purple – New England Aster and some late Blazing Stars.

Our most fun project this month has been experimenting with a new camera – a Nikon CoolPix P950. It has an extra long zoom, so it’s especially good for photos of birds and butterflies. We haven’t taken many bird photos before, so experimenting with that has been fun.

We sit on our bird watching bench in the glen and try to photograph the birds that come in to bathe in the stream. The more enthusiastically they bathe, the more disheveled their feathers get.

Black-throated Green Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler

We’ve been lucky to see others sitting still enough in the trees to get a photo.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Northern Flicker

Cedar Waxwing

Our biggest work project was cutting and treating tree sprouts along the road that runs through the south end of our property. The highway folks cut the trees in their right-of-way last winter, to keep them from falling onto the road. But since the stumps weren’t treated, they sprouted and grew into a brushy tangle. This month the county decided to spray the whole roadside, killing everything except the grass. We asked if, instead, we could do it ourselves – cutting and treating just the tree sprouts, so we’d preserve the native bushes and flowers. We have half a mile of roadside, and the hill down from the woods to the road is steep, so it’s been a challenge.

Here’s the steepest part of the slope with some of the cut tree sprouts.

A lower slope here, with a section that we worked on in the foreground, and a section that’s not done yet beyond it.

We also cut and mowed some of the willows that are taking over parts of our wetland. The beavers usually keep the willows under control, but since they’ve moved farther upstream, the willows are growing up into dense thickets.

We tried both cutting and mowing, and decided that mowing is faster and easier. We imagine the tractor as a giant, very efficient beaver.

Prairie grasses are turning color, and fall flowers – especially asters and gentians – are blooming.

Buffalo Ridge Prairie with Indian Grass

Smooth Aster

Showy Goldenrod, Sky Blue Asters, and Indian Grass

Round-headed Bush Clover

Stiff Gentian

Showy Goldenrod and Stiff Gentian

Bottle Gentian with a mix of newer and older blossoms

Northern Hawkweed seed heads

Bumble bee on Purple Giant Hyssop

Orange and Clouded Sulfur butterflies are fluttering everywhere right now – especially on New England Asters.

Orange Sulfur on New England Aster

Sulfurs rest with their wings closed, so it’s difficult to photograph the top side of their wings which is the best way to tell which species they are. This one with the partly open wings is an Orange Sulfur.

Clouded Sulfur and bumble bee on Showy Goldenrod

And a few more butterflies….

Painted Lady – the only one I’ve seen this year.

American Lady

Variegated Fritillary – the first one I’ve seen in a long time. They’re not very common here.

Once in a while butterflies come to my moth lights. This one is a Northern Crescent.

Wetland flowers

Grass of Parnassus

Blue Lobelia

Fringed Gentian

Morning clouds over the wetland

The Maze Meadow is full of flowers this year – its second summer after we planted wetland seeds. The flowers are mostly Blue Vervain, Oxeye, and Black-eyed Susan.

Sawtooth Sunflowers

I walked up onto Sumac Prairie several times looking for Northern Flower Moths. I didn’t find any this year, but the prairie is looking good – and especially beautiful in the early morning.