[To see photos and stories of this prairie in other years, go to the links on the main Sumac Prairie page.]

When I visited Sumac Prairie in September to look for Northern Flower Moths, I decided to work on clearing Sumac at the same time.  The upper half of the prairie is slowly being taken over by sumac and gray dogwood.  I cut and treated sumac (and found and photographed Northern Flower Moths) for 4 mornings.

In October Erik (from Kule Region Forestry) drove his mulching machine up into the savanna below the main prairie remnant.  He cut – shredded and mulched – much of the smaller brush.

1/3/2022

3/14/2022

3/16/2022

9/3/2022  Most of the lower part of the prairie looked like this – with a few sumac sprouts and some small aspens.  I cut and treated both sumac and aspens with Milestone + bark oil.

9/3/2022  Higher on the prairie, and on the western part of the slope it looked more like this – lots of sumac.

9/9/2022  Northern Flower Moth on Sky Blue Aster – I found a few moths each day I looked.

9/6/2022  Looking west – I cut and treated sumac working my way into some of the places with very thick sumac.

9/9/2022  I dropped the sumac I cut unless it made thick piles.  When there was too much I made piles that I could roll down the hill to the woods below.

9/9/2022  The lower part of the slope had much less sumac.

9/12/2022  Lower area cleared of sumac.

9/15/2022  Two Northern Flower Moths – the only time I found two together

9/29/2022  Distant view of the prairie

9/29/2022  Zoomed in view of the areas where I cut sumac.

I don’t yet have photos of the work Erik did in the savanna below the prairie.