Summer phenology

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Here's a very basic sampling of the kinds of natural events you can observe as you visit the Lakeshore Nature Preserve in the summer. Please use these suggestions as a starting place for investigations of your own. Once you've started experiencing the world through the eyes of a phenologist, you'll be amazed at the things you suddenly see that you've somehow never noticed before !

Watch for the monarchs arriving in June. These amazing insects migrate thousands of miles each year, so their arrival in the Preserve represents the end of one of nature's more astonishing journeys.
Prairie flowers are among the largest and most exuberantly colorful of any you can find during the summer months. Stop by Biocore Prairie and the restoration project in upper Bill's Woods from time to time and you'll be amazed by what you see there.
One of the most glorious sights of the Preserve is seeing a sandhill crane on wing during the summer months. Be sure to listen for their calls, which some people imagine are what pterodactyl calls might have sounded like!
Pay close attention to hawks hovering over the open fields by Eagle Heights Community Gardens, and you'll soon realize that they're busy hunting. Watch long enough, and you may be lucky enough to see them swoop down for a kill.
Hawks are definitely formidable, and if you were a smaller bird you surely wouldn't want to have to take one on by yourself. But smaller birds can sometimes find strength in numbers by joining together to attack a hawk. Watch for the drama of this “mobbing” behavior during the summer months.
If you watch closely, one of the mammals you can see in the Preserve is a muskrat. Even if you don't see the animal itself, watch for a mysterious “V” moving steadily across the water in University Bay or along the Lakeshore Path. Then watch for a head appearing above the water at the apex of the “V.”
Watch for berries in the woods in late summer and early fall...but unless you're very confident about your plant identification skills, don't eat them! Many are poisonous, and it's best to leave for them for the animals anyway.
A sure sign that summer is coming to an end and that fall and winter are on their way is when cattails burst and send their winged seeds sailing across the lake. Keep an eye on University Bay for when this moment arrives.

Photo credits:

All photos: Glenda Denniston