Restoration and rehabilitation
It was another dry summer following a reasonably wet early spring. Many flowers seemed to be reduced due to the drought-like conditions, but the Red Oaks had a mast year for acorns.
We had days and weeks at a time, with dry, cool weather which made outdoor activities enjoyable due to the lack of mosquitoes and lack of humidity.
There were multiple nights of potential visibility of the Northern Lights - Aurora borealis. We missed most and missed the best night's display by 15 minutes!
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Colors of the Northern Lights on October 10, 2024. This was looking south and the bright spot is the moon. |
Flora and fauna
Birds: 182 species. Added a flyover Common Merganser in February, and heard a Sora from the neighbor's pond in May.
Mammals: 21 species. No additions this year.
Herps: 12 species. No additions this year.
Fish: still remains at 1 species.
Invertebrates
Butterflies: remains at 52 species.
Moths: 762 species. 89 species added this year due to more effort with blacklights at the banding shack, porch, and side of the garage. Here are some of the faves of the new ones:
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Callima argenticinctella - Orange-headed Epicallima in July, a non-native moth |
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Flies (Diptera): 173 species, up from 158 in 2023.
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Bibio femoratus - March Fly in April at a black light |
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Bees/wasps (Hymenoptera): 148 species, up from 136 in 2023.
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Dragonflies/damselflies (Odonata): 48 species. Added Springtime Darner (Basiaeschna janata) in June.
Beetles (Coleoptera): 167 species, up from 150 species in 2023.
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Orthosoma brunneum - Brown Prionid at black light in July |
Emelinus melsheimeri on Washington Hawthorn in July |
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True Bugs (Hemiptera): 100 species, up from 89 in 2023.
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Other bugs and insects: 91 species, up from 85 in 2023.
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Plants: Not too much to be found this year, but we were surprised to see a very colorful, non-native common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) pop up in an area between our back praire and old field where we'd cut back a lot of volunteer cherries, pokeweed, and dogwoods. The area was getting a lot more sun, and seeds of this foxglove can last >60 years in the soil! Presumably, the immediate previous owners had planted some. Very pretty, but we yanked it out and kept an eye out for others.
The other colorful non-native we found was in our front prairie was wild basil (Clinopodium vulgare). There were quite a few plants, and we are not sure if they came in with some of the prairie plants we'd rescued locally, or what. The small bees seemed appreciative of these plants which were growing in very dry conditions; we've let them stay.
Our new FQA (Floristic Quality Assessment) stats follow:
Whole property: 370 species (65.9% native), overall and adjusted FQI* 44.2 and 28.4
Woods: 217 species (83.9% native), FQI 47.1 and 35.7
Woods + old field: 279 species (77.1% native), FQI 46.8 and 31.6
Fungi: 168 distinct kinds have been found, with 151 of them identified close to species with a fair degree of confidence.
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*In standardized botanical assessments, each species is assigned a "C value" or Coefficient of Conservatism from 0-10, gauging its tolerance to disturbance and affinity for intact historical ecosystems. From this, an index is calculated. Abundance is not figured in (thus a huge population of a rare/specialized species "counts" the same as a single plant) and species not native to Michigan always score "0", even if they are expanding their ranges into Michigan naturally, or are not invasive or habitat specific. In Michigan FQI's of greater than 35 are considered important floristically while most undeveloped land scores less than 20
