Spring is Springing (Slowly)

Posted Sat, April 25, 2009 - 10:03 PM
minnesota, photography

It's been a busy week, and I haven't had much time to post recently! But this weekend, I managed to get away for a short time and take a trip up to Helen Allison Savanna SNA in northern Anoka County. This 100+ acre plot is owned by the Nature Conservancy and managed in cooperation with the Minnesota DNR's Scientific and Natural Area program. The terrain is beautiful - small rolling hills and damp depressions on the Anoka Sand Plain, covered by a mixture of open prairie, oak savanna, and oak woods. The sandy soil lends itself to a xeric to mesic prairie environment, not much helped by the dry conditions we've had so far this year.

There's a brown DNR sign, but no parking to speak of - only a small gravel spur next to a gate. But if you walk in a few yards, there's a mailbox next to a big bur oak tree - it's not a real mailbox, but serves to protect the register. A fellow named Don had been here a week before and reported both prairie buttercups and pasqueflowers blooming. A subsequent entry from yesterday opined how the pasqueflowers were already gone. But as I replaced the register and continued on, I saw the buttercups were still there:

Prairie Buttercups at Helen Allison Savanna SNA

Everything was still pretty dry and brown. But as I walked along the open ridges, dodging the occasional oak, I found that the six-legged residents were busy:

Ant Nest at Helen Allison Savanna SNA

Closeup of an ant nest at Helen Allison Savanna SNA

Click on the closeup picture to see the detail of how dense the little critters were. Within a radius of about a yard, I could hear a steady, shooshing, rustling sound of all their little legs moving around, against the leaves, grass, and each other. A few stragglers decided to climb up (and into) my shoes to investigate, but with my pants tucked in to avoid ticks, I only needed to brush them off.

The buttercups were the only flowers out there in the sun, so I eventually moved on and drove over to Wild River to take a look at the Trillium Trail. (Obviously, no trilliums yet.) The dry weather has been forcing a late spring, and there wasn't much. All the hepaticas and the few anemones were nodding and nearly closed, but there was a good crop of bloodroot.

Spring wildflowers at Wild River State Park

A lot of Virginia waterleaf and trout lily leaves were up, but no flowers yet. I also spotted a few of the Dutchman's breeches finely divided leaves.

Virginia waterleaf at Wild River State Park

I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks - after we get some good rain, the forest floor ought to explode for a brief time, at least until the trees start to leaf out. But after that, we've still have the spring-beauties, the trilliums, and the may-apples to look forward to before yielding to the summer flowers!