ironweed

The tall, stately plants topped by brilliant purple flowers -- blooming now by the pond -- are Common Ironweed Vernonia fasciculata.  Each 5- or 6-foot tall plant has a purple-green stem, dark green toothed leaves along the stem, and clusters of flowers at the top. Clusters are made up of many flower heads, each about 3/4” across. After the flowers open and mature, each becomes a fruit that is composed of a dry seed with a tuft of coppery brown hair. 

This is a host plant for the 'American Painted Lady' butterfly and also has value to native bees.

Ironweed got its common name because of several qualities: tough straight stems like iron rods, fading purple flowers become rusty-tinged, and seeds are colored like rust.

Ironweed is one of about 500 species of perennial plants constituting the genus Vernonia of the family Asteraceae; it's species are distributed throughout the world.

black wasp

 

I was surprised and apprehensive to see this big black wasp on a milkweed flower near the pond.  It was alarming because of its size (over one inch) but is not a pest to harm people. This Great Black Wasp Sphex pennsylvanicus, looks iridescent violet-black with smoky transparent wings that have a violet sheen. They visit flowers to feed on nectar and pollen; no harm to the plants. 

The female Black Wasp digs a burrow in the ground to reproduce her kind. She hunts katydids, paralyzes them, and places several in the burrow. She then lays eggs in the burrow.  They hatch into larvae. They have a ready meal, quietly growing into adult Black Wasps. 

blue lobelia

A mid-height plant with tall columns of flowers, Great Blue Lobelia Lobelia siphilitica stands out from the green grasses and foliage in several places around the pond.  

This Lobelia started blooming in late July.  Its native wildflowers will continue showing clear blue blooms through the autumn as the individual flowers open starting at the bottom of each column.

It attracts butterflies, and provides a color contrast to the gold and yellows of other late summer blooms.

Coneflower seed harvest

It is time to harvest some wildflower seeds, in order to expand the native plant population in the riparian buffer surrounding our pond.  There are more than 30 documented native species in this buffer.  Close to the water is a ring of wetland; outside of that is a ring of moist to dry areas.  So the pond provides a comfortable home for a wide variety of plants.  We hope to reduce the 'weeds' and encourage the flowering native plants to flourish.

For example, a few coneflowers bloom here.  Purple Coneflower Echinacea purpurea now has some blooms 'going to seed' as the petals dry out. When I remove the seeds, intending to spread them around the pond for new plants, we can see why this plant is called 'cone flower'.

song sparrow on branch

 Song Sparrows usually stay low to the ground and forage secretively among grasses and wildflower plants.  Moving along wetland edges Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia will search for beetles, caterpillars, dragonflies, grasshoppers, snails, or earthworms -- flitting or hopping through plants surrounding the pond to find a meal.  They will also eat berries and seeds when insects are not plentiful.

Occasionally males will come to an exposed perch to sing their sweet melody.  Song Sparrow sounds

sandpiper

 A hot sultry day in August.  The pond was quiet.  Several rocks appeared offshore in the last few days, exposed by the lack of rain and lower water level.  Good for sandpipers hunting lunch.  This Solitary Sandpiper Tringa solitaria shows off its white eye ring while it waits on a rock to spot a meal in or on the water -- aquatic invertebrates such as larvae, worms, flies, or mollusks.  

ladybug on Mountain Mint

This Mountain Mint plant supplied a meal for a ladybug.  Ladybugs, or Lady Beetles, are in the coccinellids family of beetles, not bugs.  Most are predators -- they eat smaller insects.  They prefer insects that happen to be considered pests on plants.  This includes mites, white flies, and scale insects, but especially aphids.  When the aphids are all eaten on a given plant, Ladybugs quickly head to another plant or area to find more of their favorites.

Monkey Flower

Blooming now -- small lilac-purple flowers at the very edge of the pond.  Some native plants around the pond, like these, are not noticeable until you get close.  Monkey Flower Mimulus ringens.  The name comes from the Latin diminutive of mimus meaning "a mimic" or little monkey.  The flowers are like tiny snapdragons, less than one inch long.  Bumblebees are important native pollinators for this species.  Monkey Flower is a native plant, naturalized along the pond's margin. 

Monarch butterfly caterpillars

The  rose flowers of Swamp Milkweed Asclepias incarnata plants are blooming in several places along the shore around the pond.  Actually, the flowers can vary in color from soft mauve to dusty pink to soft crimson violet.  This milkweed attracts a profusion of butterflies and other pollinators who lap up its nectar.  The Monarch butterfly Danaus plexippus uses the milkweed as its host plant. A host plant is where the butterfly will lays its eggs exclusively, because the larvae that hatch will have a ready supply of the only plant they will eat.  This Swamp Milkweed had two different size caterpillars feasting on leaves.  (In these photos, golden aphids share the sweetness of the plant.)

Eastern Forktail damselfly

This damselfly, a young orange female Eastern Forktail, is of a species often seen near ponds in Minnesota.  The male Eastern Forktail is mostly green and black.  Older females look blue or frosty violet.  Forktails Ischnura verticalis live through winter in the water as nymphs, feeding on smaller aquatic critters.  But they are also prey for larger aquatic creatures.  If they make it through to springtime, they emerge out of the water as adult damselflies.  If they can avoid being eaten by a bird, they will mate and deposit eggs into plant stems or floating material.  The eggs later hatch and release new nymphs into the pond for next year's damselflies.

bees on thistle

young blackbird

Young birds often have the same feather color and pattern as their mother until they get their adult feathers.  Three eggs were in the Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoenicius nest this spring; three young birds fledged out of that nest, looking like their mom. 

Today, this young one perched close enough that we could see the beginning of the orange epaulettes on the shoulders.  Females do have epaulettes but they are usually orange-gold and blend in with her brown streaky appearance.  Males will molt into more blackish body feathers to contrast with bright orange-red epaulettes.  

But all have the pointy long beak, so nicely posed by the blackbird in this photo.

Tussock Moth Caterpillars on milkweed

12 spotted skimmer

The pond area is home to several 

kinds of  dragonflies. 

The females lay their eggs on a plant in the water,

or just drop them into the water.

The eggs hatch after about a week,

when the creatures are called 'nymphs'.

Dragonfly nymphs live in the water while they grow. The length of this portion of the 

dragonfly life cycle is variable.

If the nymphs are not grown enough at 

beginning of winter they will remain

 in the water until spring, often beneath ice.

They feed actively and grow all winter 

to emerge as adults in spring. 

This is a dragonfly called 12-Spotted Skimmer, perched on a reed top in early August.

protecting native plants

You might see me pulling weeds, snipping tree sprouts, or clipping seed heads in the riparian buffer surrounding our pond.  This is necessary to protect the pollinators, birds, and critters that depend on the native plants and the clean water in the pond.  Fortunately, we have a wonderful variety of native wildflowers close to the pond that have been thriving and propagating for several years.

Unfortunately, the builder brought in soil during the last 12 months to finish the area beyond the native plantings. That soil contained a plentiful seed bank of invasive or harmful species. We now have a bothersome crop of knapweed, velvetleaf (shown above), mustard, ragweed, lambs quarter, crabgrass, dock, amaranth, spurge, and thistles surrounding the pond.  They are competing with the desirable native plants like milkweed, aster, lobelia, boneset, chamomile, clover, daisy, echinacea, golden alexander, meadow rue, bee balm, penstemon, ironweed, mountain mint, vervain, silene, sunflower, and others. 

To protect them, you will see me pulling, snipping, and clipping.

wasp on white sweet clover

frog on echinacea

This Gray Treefrog Hyla versicolor can change colors.  Part of its Latin name is versicolor, meaning 'to turn color'.  Any treefrog can appear as a mottled grayish green or solid green or gray or creamy white color, depending on where it is and whether it needs to be camouflaged.  Today, this one was looking among the leaves and flowers of Echinacea for insects to eat.  He was trying to hide by being green as the leaves of this plant.

Rather than chase their prey, Gray Treefrogs sit and eat whatever comes by.  They live and reproduce in ponds; they often sit in residential areas where it feeds on flying bugs or insects that are attracted to landscape lights.

pennant

Walking along the shore near the pond on an overcast hot day, I noticed a dragonfly perched on a stem of Horsetail.

This is a Halloween Pennant Celithemis eponina dragonfly.  They usually perch horizontally like this, waving in the breeze pennant-style, at the top of vegetation.

At 1-1/2 inches long, this dragonfly would be a juicy meal for a predator.

butterfly

This Monarch butterfly Danaus plexippus was flitting around from flower to flower near the pond. It settled for a moment on a Purple Coneflower Echinacea purpurea.  But Monarchs prefer their host plant, milkweed, so it did not linger here.  The Monarchs' distinctive colors and pattern warn predators (mostly birds) that they’re foul-tasting and poisonous because of their diet. The milkweed they eat is toxic, but monarchs have evolved not only to tolerate it, but to use it to their advantage by storing the toxins in their bodies and making themselves bad for creatures who would eat butterflies.

nectar

White Sweet Clover is a another plant brought to North America as a green manure for fields and as a forage crop for livestock. And it is another plant that quickly escaped cultivation, now growing in disturbed areas as a weed.

It can be a nuisance because the seeds can persist in the soil for several decades and remain viable.

But it is considered an excellent nectar plant by beekeepers, especially for Honey Bees.
Many kinds of insects feast on the nectar, including long-tongued bees, short-tongued bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, skippers, beetles, and plant bugs.  Short-tongued bees also collect and transfer its pollen.

Both the foliage and flowers are mildly fragrant. White Sweet Clover Melilotus alba blooms from early summer to fall.

horsetail

Horsetail Equisetum spp. is a living dinosaur among plants; it belongs to a plant family that dates back to 350 million years ago.  On the edge of the pond, a cluster of Horsetail grows in the sun.

This plant is not related to ferns, but reproduces through spores (not seed) like ferns.  At the top of its stems, the cone-like spore-producing structures grow.  The stem also has tiny gray leaves fused vertically onto it in a sheath with a black ring beneath. 

From a distance the plant looks like a group of attractive stems, from 2 to 4 feet tall.  Tiny ridges run vertically along the stems and contain silica.  Those stems feel rough and, in the past, people used this plant for scouring cooking utensils.

birds on the branch

Eastern Bluebirds also like to sit on the branch over the pond.

Many flying creatures use this branch as a place to spot a prey item to eat, or a place to rest, or a place to socialize.

In this photo, after some rain, the rock behind the Bluebirds is under water.  It is our gauge for the water level in the pond.

Below, a turtle sits on the same rock on a day when the water level is lower.

out of the nest box

When young songbirds are grown enough to leave the nest, it may be an hours-long process for the parents and the young.

We've been watching the Tree Swallows Tachycineta bicolor for four days, thinking it would happen soon.

This afternoon the parents started flying at the nest box without any food items, teasing the young birds to come out of the nest.  Finally, they did.  It is amazing to see a creature take its first flight.

This little Tree Swallow is leaping out into air for the first time, nose down and spreading his wings with new strong feathers to fly with the big guys.  But he flopped to the ground, flapped his wings a few times, then took off again successfully.

Now, the parents will teach the young birds to hunt for insects on their own. We may see them flying together over the pond.

dragonflies for lunch

On 7/18 we thought the Tree Swallows might be ready to leave the nestbox.  But they have not fledged yet.  The adults are still regularly feeding the three nestlings.  And they are bringing bigger food items as the young ones grow.  Today both parents kept up a continuous delivery of meals to the nestbox, including several dragonflies.  Two little birds were hanging out of the slot above the "door" hoping to get the prize, while the third one was inside the door.  The parents feed the young from dawn until dusk, bringing flies, beetles, ants, mayflies, spiders, grasshoppers, damselflies, and dragonflies.

dragonflies on branch

We love the branch over the pond, since it is a platform for all flying creatures to settle on for a short time.  Usually we get a close look at birds pausing there.  Now, in mid-summer, the dragonflies and damselflies use it too. 

12-Spotted Skimmer

Eastern Pondhawk or Blue Dasher