Mowing Musings

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (dark form)

If you've followed this blog long, you have probably guessed that many of my photo inspirations, and the majority of my "musing" time occurs during mowing.  That means that while he gathers his thoughts and the materials for these blogs, ProfessorRoush is often sitting atop steering a rapidly spinning knife moving at 2-4 miles/hour across the lawn and around, over, or through various obstacles, some of which turn into lethal projectiles when they exit the mower deck.  And this all occurs while my attention is distracted to the borders or plants beside my path of mowing rather than staying focused on the task.  It is a miracle that I have yet to injure anything more dear than an errant clump of groundcover.

Flowers, animals, insects, weather, and my general sense of the world are all fair game for my attention and interest while mowing.   For instance, within the last two weeks,  I've mowed while simultaneously racing the absolutely beautiful rainstorm encroaching from the northwest (photo at left), and I've had the (I believe) newly hatched, dark form Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus, photo at top) fall from an ash tree right into my lap as I passed.   The "dark form" of this dimorphic butterfly means that this specimen is almost certainly a female.

In the former instance, I kept one eye on the sky as I mowed, both hoping for rain and hoping it would hold off a few extra minutes until I could finish.   In the former, this beautiful and delicate creature that my passage disturbed was unable to fly, and so, afraid that the circling Purple Martins would spot it struggling in the grass, I stopped the mower and gently lifted it back into the lower branches of the ash, under concealment and away from the hungry Martin eyes.   After, of course, I took an extra moment to photograph and document its presence and beauty.

Flannel Mullein

As I mow near the periphery of my influence, where the "yard" changes over to bovine-grazed or bush-hog-mowed native prairie, I keep an eye out for blooming wildflowers, learning their identities and habitats, timing my worldview by their annual growth and bloom cycles, and discovering which insects or fauna each attract.  On a recent mowing,  the bright yellow, nonnative, drought-tolerant biennial  Flannel Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) was blooming (above and at left).  This woolly-leaved plant is said to have been traditionally boiled with lye to make a hair dye, presumably for use by those who believe that "blonds have more fun"/  Left alone, unmowed unlike the clump above, those yellow eye-catching spires reach taller than my head and spread enormous, soft, hairy leaves across their base.  

Blue Verbena (Verbena hastata) was also blooming on "mowing day" and was attracting an energetic Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice) butterfly to pollinate and feed from it.  Blue Verbena, also known as Blue Vervain, is a native, very drought-tolerant plant and a common tall perennial of my prairie.   Its seeds are a major source of feed for the finches and sparrows of the area, and, as you can see, its nectar attracts its own admirers.

Blue Verbena & Clouded Sulphur butterfly

The complimentary coloring of the  light yellow butterfly and violet Verbena naturally-form a nearly perfect color-wheel contrast, and I couldn't resist stopping the mower once again to grab these photos.  Capturing this rapidly-moving butterfly in a still moment takes patience and time, both of which I provided and yet I was still unable to capture a suitable photo of it with wings outspread. 

Some weeks, my mowing time is extended from around 2 hours to 3 or 4 hours depending on the scenic distractions and the number of times I stop for photos or to remove random offensive weeds.  But can you really blame me?

Plant of the Week

Black Sampson echinacea

The weekly lawn-mowing occurred on schedule today, a necessary Saturday chore that ProfessorRoush routinely approaches with resignation combined with mild boredom.  I allegedly mow because the alternative to mowing (NOT-MOWing) leads ultimately to chaos in the garden and results in disdainful glances and shaking fists from passing neighbors and even threats of visits from authorities who have bestowed themselves with the ability to levy fines and prison sentences and the like. But truthfully, not really caring about the public reaction, I tolerate mowing because it gives me an opportunity to see all of the garden when I mow round and round and round about it, noting the species and cultivars in bloom or lamenting the loss of others even while I sunburn and sweat my youth away.

This week it was evident  to me that the garden gave up waiting on the judgement of the gardener and chose a Plant of the Week on its own, bestowing the honor on the Black Sampson echinacea, Echinacea angustifolia, now in bloom all over the garden.   My decision to NOT-MOW parts of the garden, ostensively to create a "rain garden" but in full disclosure just to mow less space and to spend less time doing it, has resulted in a slow increase in the native forbs as I intended, and now I'm "reaping the echinacea," as it were. 

The garden has welcomed Black Sampson within it, and sheltered it from storm, scorching sun, and snow, but its selection as Plant of the Week is also endorsed and promoted by the fauna of the garden, favored as it is by some sort of horrid little black beetles crawling on it and leaving holes in the petals (the same beetles also seem to be simultaneously merrily attacking the native Western Yarrow, Achillea millefolium), but also desired, and more to my personal joy, by native prairie butterflies, who are happily feeding on the spiky Black Sampson.

Variegated Fritillary, Euptoieta claudia

I am not a butterfly expert by anyone's estimation, least of all my own, but I believe I have correctly identified this one as a Variegated Fritillary, Euptoieta claudia, common to the region and a perfect match for web images and descriptions of the species, right down to the "pale yellow median band crossing both wings."  "Claudia", as I quickly nicknamed her, didn't seem to mind the lack of petals on this fading echinacea bloom as she moved rapidly around the spikes gathering nectar.

I am far less sure about  the identity of this white skipper shown at the right, but I was delighted to capture this clear and focused silhouette photo of its proboscis extended into the flower.  It is likely a Common Checkered-Skipper, Pyrgus communis, but while the folded wings look perfectly like other web images of the species, the unfolded wings of "my" skipper didn't have near the gray/brown coloration on the upper surfaces, nor the characteristic "blue-green sheen on upper body hairs" noted by experts  It resembles nothing else, however, in the Kansas butterfly guide that I chose as a reference.

Who really knows about skippers anyway?  There is evidently a White-Checkered Skipper that is quite similar,  the latter stated to be the only white skipper found in neighboring Missouri, but yet published distribution maps of the White-Checkered Skipper don't show it anywhere north of southern Oklahoma.  Another reference gave the Common-Checkered Skipper a different classification entirely, listing it as Burnsius communis (Grote, 1872), and stated "This species is separated from the White-Checkered Skipper with confidence only by dissection and examination of the male genitalia."   Since I have little or no confidence in my ability to assess male skipper genitalia, let alone find them, I'll have to just live on without knowing, won't I?

In the meantime, however, it's very nice to find the echinacea and the skippers and fritillaries engaged in the normal activities and seasonal pairings of the Kansas prairie.   My dislike of  mowing just fades fast away when I find native butterflies enjoying the garden that the prairie allows me to call "mine."