Today was a pretty standard mid-summer day for Team Echinacea. Because of the early flowering, there is no lack of work to be done in order to keep up with the flowers. In the morning, Jill and Katherine emptied Jill’s pitfall traps at the Northwest Landfill, North-Northwest Landfill, and East Elk Lake Road sites. They found lots of insects including thatch ants and several different types of ground beetles. Lydia and I went out to several of the remnants to work on our phenology and incompatibility research. Andrew and Shona worked together on Andrew’s pollinator observations in the C1 Garden. After a string of unlucky days it looks like the bees are finally coming out again! Maria continues to wake up before the sun to observe Dicanthelium , although it sounds like they have stopped producing pollen so a well-earned reprieve might be on the way.
In the afternoon we measured away in C1. We’ve finally made it to the ’99 garden! I think we might be half way done!
Here’s a picture of our new mascot. He was generously brought to us by Roxy last Thursday and we’re all very excited to have such a unique pet!
In case you can’t tell from the picture, that’s a pretty swelled up tick. Ew!
To end on a slightly prettier note, here’s a picture of Monarda fistulosa, also known as Bee Balm. This plant was flowering at Pembina Trail Preserve yesterday, but I saw others flowering today at Staffanson Prairie Preserve. To me they look like something straight out of a Dr. Seuss book!
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