Events and Announcements:

• Pollinator Walk August 8 from 12-1 pm inside the Visitor Center: Join a naturalist in learning all about pollinators! There will be a short presentation in the Visitor Center, followed by a Pollinator Discovery Walk around the Prairie Interpretive Trail, where we will search for and learn about pollinators and the wildflowers they love. This is a 0.5-mile non-strenuous walk, with no sun cover or pavement. Please come prepared with bug spray, sunscreen, and a hat for sun protection.
• Wildflower Painting Station August 8 from 9 to 11 am inside the Visitor Center: Learn about parts of a wildflower and why certain pollinators are drawn to them! There will be paint and paper to create your own wildflower. This activity will take 10-20 minutes. Suitable for ages 2 and over.

Astronomy

The Perseid meteor shower peaks on Wednesday the 12th and has the potential to be spectacular since that is the night of the new moon. New moon means no moon which means dark skies for seeing shooting stars! The best time to look will be in the hours before sunrise. Look to the northeast for maybe up to 50 shooting stars per hour. The Perseids get their name because they appear to radiate in all directions outward from the constellation Perseus. Perseus is in between the constellation Casseiopia and the Pleiades star cluster.

We also get to see a partial solar eclipse – the total eclipse will be visible in Greenland, Iceland, and Spain. Here in Minnesota only 2.5 percent of the sun will be covered by the Moon. It will start at 11:55 a.m. on Wednesday the 12th, and at 12:13 pm a little slice on the upper left side of the sun will be dark. The partial eclipse will end at about 12:30. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it and be sure to wear eye protection!

Birds

Tree Swallows and Barn Swallows are all done raising young and are about to migrate south. Looks for groups of them gathering on utility wires. Kingbirds will leave before long, too, traveling in flocks and flying in the daytime on their journey to South America. Meadowlarks will be with us a while longer, though by the end of the month they will begin gathering into flocks. They will have a much shorter migration than kingbirds, with some traveling only to the southern U.S., while others will go to northern South America. In the woods look for marauding bands of Cedar Waxwings feeding on berries. They make a short whistling call.

Mammals

Squirrels begin to prepare for winter by gathering acorns, black walnut seed pods, and redcedar berries. Gray Squirrels bury acorns and nuts in shallow holes in the ground, one nut per hole. They don’t have very good memories, but do have a good sense of smell, so all the nuts and acorns that are buried may later be eaten by the squirrel that buried them, or by some other squirrel. And some are never eaten; some of those may sprout and grow up to be trees!

Amphibians and reptiles

In the early morning hours you may see young Tree Frogs climbing windows in search of insects. Frogs climb up glass using sticky pads on their toes. Or you may see them hanging out in the shade of milkweed plants or just about anywhere – keep your eyes peeled! They can change color from gray to green. One of the differences between frogs and toads is that frogs have the sticky pads on their toes, and toads do not. The two species of tree frog at Afton, the Gray Tree Frog and the Cope’s Tree Frog, look very much alike.

Insects

Monarch butterflies will soon begin roosting in groups in anticipation of their southward migration; look for groups of them perched together on trees on cool mornings before the air has warmed up enough for them to be active. Also look for Common Sulphur butterflies on the prairie and Mourning Cloaks in the woods. And have you ever seen lots of butterflies gathered at a mud puddle or on a pile of horse manure? That’s where I saw about a dozen Eastern Tailed-Blue Butterflies! Male butterflies gather at mud puddles or on manure to absorb salts. They transfer the salts to females during mating, which provides nutrients for the resulting butterfly eggs.

Some insects are very small, like the colorful Sharpshooter Leafhopper, the Leaf-footed Bug, and the Twice-Stabbed Stink Bug. These are all members of the group called “true bugs”, which have sucking mouthparts. Like grasshoppers, true bugs undergo only an incomplete metamorphosis and do not have a larval form. Instead a “nymph” hatches directly from an egg, and is simply a miniature version of the adult. As the insect grows, it molts its exoskeleton and a new soft one underneath hardens. These in- between forms are called “instars”; the insect is an adult after its final molt.

Plants

Look for Joe-Pye Weed and Ironweed in wet areas, White Snakeroot and Boneset along the edges of the woods, and Blue Vervain and Prairie Onions on the prairie. And Thistles are blooming; late-nesting American Goldfinches use thistledown in their nests and feed the seeds to their young.

Weather observations

Here are some weather observations from past years.

Friday, August 7	2022: rain in the evening; 2015: ½ inch rain; 2001: Record high of 98°
Saturday, August 8	2022: 50s in the morning, rising into the 70s; 2020: skies dark through day but only a few sprinkles; 2014: high in low 80s; 1894, 1914, 2010: Record high of 96°
Sunday, August 9	2025: rain overnight after midnight; 2020 thunderstorms off and on through day; 1947, 2010: Record high of 95°
Monday, August 10	2025: overcast and humid, 80s; 2022: 80s and sunny; 2020: 3/8” rain overnight; 2010: Record rainfall of 2.47 inches
Tuesday, August 11	2025: 80s; 2007: Record rainfall of 1.73 inches; 1968, 2004: Record low of 47°
Wednesday, August 12	2022: 1.4” rain overnight; 2019: Sunny and high 50s to start the day; 2011: cloudy through day, in the 70s
Thursday, August 13	2014: Low 60s in the morning, rising into the 80s; 2007: record rainfall of 2.05 inches

Photo/image credits

All photos and images used by permission.

Copyright Nina Manzi, except:

• Keith Henjum: Cedar Waxwing
• Gary Sater: Eastern Kingbird, Eastern Meadowlark