"What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked." -Aldo Leopold
Unfortunately, we didn’t have an opportunity to get back to the nest site until late May. When we returned, we found the parents were busy raising four already good-sized chicks. The photography was challenging. We had to contend with the too-speedy traffic of the river road that lied between us and the bluff face where the nest was located and the heat distortion that this blacktop created. There is also the issue of trying to photograph the fastest vertebrate on the planet.
Miguel and I spent a few hours in the spring and early summer of 2022 photographing a pair of Peregrine Falcons in Madison County, IL during their nesting season. In this first post, the photos were taken in March. There were likely no eggs in the nest at this point and the pair was bonding by the male bringing in food for the female and the two soaring the skies of their territory. It wound up being a pretty dramatic nesting season. Lots more pics to follow.
Back in late June, Miguel and I took a trip to the “Cole Camp Prairies” near Sedalia MO. Here, we were after a target I had long wanted to photograph, the regal fritillary butterfly (Speyeria idalia). Once abundant across the ancient prairies, lands that are now mostly used to grow the crops feeding us, the regal fritillary are now listed as a G3/S3 species, meaning they are vulnerable to extinction. The reason for this is that the regal fritillary host plants are violet species that only grow in the scarce remnants of the once vast ocean of prairies that covered much of the central United States. Fewer acres of prairie means fewer prairie violets that leads to fewer butterflies. Fortunately, the pitiful amount of prairie remnants left in the Show-Me State do still support this fantastic butterfly and Miguel and I did our best to find and photograph some.
The Cole Camp Prairie complex is a list of approximately eight mostly postage-stamp sized publicly accessible prairies located north of the small town of Cole Camp in Benton County. I did some research to find out which prairies had confirmed sightings in the previous years and which were more likely to have a sizeable population. I knew we would focus on these, but because these prairies are pretty close to one another, we wound up visiting seven locations just to see the differences between them and to give the entire area a good scouting for the regals.
Our first stop was at Paint Brush Prairie Conservation Area. This is one of the larger of the Cole Camp Prairies and was reported to hold one of the better-sized populations of regals. Our visit coincided with the early portion of the regals flight period and this would hold ramifications that would complicate the achievement of our goals. Here, we did find an estimated two dozen regals. However, these were all most likely males that typically emerge earlier than females. Although some plants were in bloom, these males were not interested in feeding. Instead, they were constantly cruising, inches above the vegetation, assumedly waiting for one of the first females to emerge and an opportunity to mate. We tried our best. Once in a while, one would stop to rest for a brief second or two, but it was never long enough to get in position, find focus and take the shot. I then tried to see if it was possible to photograph them in flight. This proved to be about as fruitless as it sounds. After hundreds of shots, I wound up with only a single keeper, pictured here.
Our next stop, just a quick drive west, was at Friendly Prairie C.A. This wound up being our most successful stop. Success in photographing these beasts lies in your visit’s timing with flowering plants. In late June, we missed the prolific blooming of most of the Echinacea and Asclepias and were a tad too early for the blooming period of the native Cirsium that support the energy needs of these butterflies over mid to late summer. Thankfully, we did find a few Asclepias tuberosa at peak bloom and the regals had found them as well. We only found four regals here, but they were cooperative indeed!
We continued our tour of the Cole Camp Prairies, visiting the holdings that the Missouri Department of Conservation had to offer as well as one restoration property owned by The Nature Conservancy. Towards the end of our time, we stopped at the largest prairie parcel in the area – Hi Lonesome Prairie C.A. This prairie was very dry and, perhaps consequentially, we found very few plants in bloom. There were, however, still a number of butterflies. Here we found monarchs and a diversity of swallowtail species as well as five regals. Almost all of these were flitting around the bushes that spotted the prairie’s many hillsides. This prairie also held some nice bird diversity. In addition to the ubiquitous Dickcissel, we found Grasshopper Sparrows, Henslow Sparrows, and Bell’s Vireos. Around a couple of this area’s large ponds, dragonflies were in abundance as well. I took some time to hop the electric fence around the larger pond, finding out the hard way that it was indeed working to keep out the cattle that graze the prairie, and spent some time working with gorgeous Halloween pennant’s (Celithmis eponina). See attached photo.
I had wanted to give the Cole Camp Prairies a good tour for quite a while. I’m happy that we spent the day doing this although I know it was but a snapshot over the course of the seasons. Finding the number of regals we did was thrilling and I’m happy to have gotten a few worthwhile photos from the day. Although these prairies are a good hoof from the StL, at a little less than a three-hour drive, they are still much easier than getting to other prairies in different parts of the state. Hopefully my next visit comes soon.
-OZB
I’m calling this striking bird a juvenile male Blackpoll Warbler. Feel free to let me know if you disagree. Found on May 22, 2022 at Little Creve Coeur Ecological Area.
Miguel and I found an aggregation of the catalpa sphinx moth caterpillars on a caterpillar hunt in early September. I have been looking for this species for a while so this was a nice find. Of the ten or so we found, one was infested with the parasitoid braconid wasp cocoons. See photos below.
As these guys may be starting to trickle back into the state any day now, I thought I’d better finish up on the spectacular times we had with these birds last winter. Here’s hoping for a repeat this winter!
This first group of photos are of pelicans at Loess Bluff NWR taken in 2020 on one of their favorite perches – muskrat mounds.
The next group is from February 2022 taken at Clarksville, MO.
A few photos of great spangled fritillary taken at Prairie Garden Trust in Calloway County, MO.
Prior to 2022, the Limpkin, a bird with a normal range from Florida to the north to northern Argentina to the south, had never before been recorded in the state of Missouri. This year there have been at least 10 birds recorded in the state so far, the latest finally coming from the good part of the state! 😉 The bird featured here was found in early September by Cathy Spahn at the Japanese Garden of the Missouri Botanical Garden in downtown St. Louis City. This was extraordinary timing as the annual Japanese festival at MOBOT was going on at the time. This meant large crowds of people. Several of us arrived early on the morning of the 5th and found the bird quickly, giving us great looks and not seeming to mind the presence of people at all.
The Limpkin looks like a heron in appearance, but is actually the only extant member of its own family, the Aramidae, and is actually considered most closely related to the rails. It is also unique in feeding primarily on apple snails but will feed on other types of snails, freshwater mussels and clams and small aquatic arthropods like crayfish as it forages through its preferred habitat of brushy swamps and marshes.
This influx of Limpkins into the Show Me State wasn’t exactly a surprise. Limpkin reports outside of Florida began around 2015, with records being found in Georgia, and other southeastern states over the following years. Birders have been waiting for them to show up in Missouri for a few years and now they finally have. The reasons for their northward spread are uncertain but are likely due to the spread of an exotic island apple snail originally from tropical and subtropical South America.
I had thought about chasing Limpkins previously seen in the state in 2022 but couldn’t get myself talked into the roughly 600 mile round trip drive this would have taken. I’m so glad I saved the gas! This was quite the experience and I’ll be interested in seeing how long this bird stays in St. Louis. Here are a few more photos of this fantastic bird.
A Thousand Acres of Silphiums 