Astronomy

Welcome summer with the solstice on Friday, the 20th. “Solstice” means “sun stands still”. From here on earth we have watched the location of the sunrise and sunset swing northward along the horizon since the winter solstice on December 21st. On the 20th the sun will appear to stand still at its northernmost point on the horizon, then begin slowly moving south day by day, reminding us that winter will come again.

Early in the morning on Thursday the 26th look for the planet Mercury below and to the left of the crescent Moon.

Birds

On the prairie look for Eastern Kingbirds, and Meadowlarks. Overhead you might see Turkey Vultures, and look for Osprey raising young on the hacking tower.

Kingbirds have a white band at the end of their tail. They use the “flycatching” technique when they’re hunting insects. They perch on a tree or fencepost, and when they see an insect they fly after it, sometimes hovering in the air and making quick maneuvers to catch it before returning to their perch.

Meadowlarks have bright yellow breasts with dark “V”s. If you flush one when you’re walking it looks kind of clunky in the air. Its wingbeats are shallow and almost seem to stutter, followed by a short glide before repeating the shallow wingbeats. Its call sounds like “Hip, Hip, Hurrah, Boys! Three Cheers!”

Turkey Vultures perform an essential function in the ecosystem by scavenging dead birds and mammals. They use very little energy when they soar overhead in circles, looking down at the ground for something to eat. Vultures are one of the few birds that have a good sense of smell, and Turkey Vultures can smell carrion from a mile away. They also have keen eyesight, and can see large carcasses on the ground at a distance of up to four miles!

The Osprey is a large bird of prey sometimes called the “Fish Eagle” or “Fish Hawk” for its skill at spotting a fish in the water and then swooping down to grab it in its talons. Osprey can spot a fish less than foot long from a height of 200 feet! They dive feet first into the water to catch fish, and sometimes go fully underwater when they do. Ospreys prefer to nest in dead trees but most nests these days are on utility poles and nesting, or “hacking” platforms like the one at Afton State Park. Adult ospreys return every year to the same nesting site, until they are displaced by younger birds seeking a territory.

Where there’s open water you’ll usually see birds, and of many varieties. Look for Black-Crowned Night Herons, Wood Ducks, Spotted Sandpipers, and Prothonotary Warblers. Prothonotary Warblers take their name from their bright yellow color, which someone thought resembled the yellow cloaks worn by a type of clerk in the Roman Catholic Church who are called “prothonotaries”. Prothonotary Warblers are one of the two kinds of warblers that nest in tree cavities, usually along waterways.

Insects

On warm nights look for fireflies! Late June is the peak time to see them. You’re most likely to see them in wetlands and other damp areas. Members of the firefly family have an extra organ that other insects don’t have, called a “lantern”. Both male and female fireflies flash, and each species has its own flash pattern. The most common kinds in Minnesota are in the genuses “Photinus” and “Photuris”. The Photinus Fireflies make a yellow flash and are out right after sunset. The “Photuris” Fireflies are active later in the evening and flash a greenish-yellow light.

Photinus pyralis flies in a looping shape like a letter “J”, and emits a single long flash in the upward part of its flight.

Photuris pennsylvanica makes a “dot-dash” flash – a short flash, followed quickly by a longer one.

Amphibians

Listen for frogs and toads in the evening hours. Some have finished breeding and no longer call, but others don’t breed until June and July. That means the amphibian nighttime chorus changes over time. At the end of June you may still hear Boreal Chorus Frogs, which sound like running your finger over a comb, Tree Frogs, which make a very loud churring sound, American Toads, which make a long high-pitched trilling, and Green Frogs, which make a “plunking” sound that sounds like someone plucking the string of a banjo. The large round disk behind the eye of the green frog in the photo is its eardrum!

Mammals

There are three species of squirrels at Afton: from left to right in the photos the red squirrel, the gray squirrel, and the fox squirrel. The red squirrel is the smallest, and the fox squirrel the largest. All three species are generalists when it comes to what they eat, but red squirrels tend to focus on the seeds on conifers, and gray squirrels on acorns. Fox squirrels are more likely to eat grubs and insects.

Plants

Milkweed is the host plant for Monarch butterflies. Both common milkweed and swamp milkweed grow at Afton and are in bloom about now. Common milkweed has rounded leaves while the leaves of swamp milkweed are more pointed. See if you can spot a Monarch larva on a milkweed plant! If you do, admire it and let it go about its business of munching on milkweed. The caterpillars retain toxins from the milkweed plants in their bodies, making them poisonous to predators. The toxins remain when the larva metamorphose into butterflies. Both the caterpillars and the adult butterflies are brightly colored to send a signal to predators: “If you eat me, you’ll be sorry!”

It is typically four days from when an egg is laid until a larva hatches. The Monarch larvae eat and eat and eat for three weeks, then form a chrysalis where they spend 10 days undergoing metamorphosis before emerging as butterflies.

Weather observations

Here are some weather observations from past years.

Friday, June 20	2022: record high of 101°; 2020: dark skies in the morning with a half-hour of rain, then sunny and 70s
Saturday, June 21	2016: 60° in the morning and pleasant; 2002: record rainfall 2.95 inches
Sunday, June 22	2023: hot and muggy, in the 90s with an air quality alert; 2022: pleasant day in the 80s; 2015: stormy morning with 5/8” rain before noon
Monday, June 23	2023: sticky and 90s, then rain and falling temperatures in the late afternoon; 2020: high in the 70s, light rain in the late afternoon
Tuesday, June 24	2023: half inch of rain overnight; 2015: pleasant day with high in the 70s
Wednesday, June 25	2023: Thunderstorm overnight, then showers off and on through day; 2016: high in the 90s and muggy
Thursday, June 26	2022: cool and breezy, with a high in the 60s; 2016: drier air arrives with high in the upper 80s

Photo credits

All photos copyright Nina Manzi, except:

• Marvin Dembinsky Photo/Skip Moody, MN Conservation Volunteer: Fox Squirrel
• Bill Johnson, MN Conservation Volunteer: Photuris Pennsylvanica
• Dean Lokken: Eastern Kingbird, Meadowlark, Red Squirrel, Turkey Vulture
• Bill Marchel, MN Conservation Volunteer: Gray Squirrel
• Gary Sater: Osprey, Wood Ducks
• Greg Seitz: Prothonotary Warbler
• Stan Tekiela, MN Conservation Volunteer: Boreal Chorus Frog
• Beth Weston: Photinus Pyralis