Colorful Kansas

There's a myth that Kansas is black and white and gray all over.  I don't know where that could have started....

Dorothy aside, it's fall around here and on my way back from town this morning, I decided to stop and capture a few shots of some of the fall color I'm seeing around the area....

The smooth sumac (Rhus glabra) seems late to turn this fall, but it's sure putting on a show!

Each patch seems to have a slightly different hue to it.  Soil differences?  Exposure?  Simple genetic variability?  I don't have an answer.

One of the problems with collecting fall leaves in Kansas is that you have to be careful NOT to pick up poison ivy leaves.  For example, this clump of poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) is coloring beautifully.  They're tempting, but look - don't touch!

Poison ivy is another plant that bears different colors in different settings, so you have to be particularly careful to watch for their distinctive leaf shape.  Sometimes the clumps of poison ivy sport white berries - this is a dead giveaway to their identity, especially combined with "leaves of 3".

Smooth sumac is not poisonous, although its fall leaves are colored in similar shades of red and orange.  Not only do the leaves of smooth sumac have many more leaflets than those of poison ivy, the sumac berries are born in upright clusters and are dark red and fuzzy.

So far I've been showing poison ivy in its shrub form, but in Kansas there are 3 forms of this tricky plant:  shrub, understory "forb", and vine.  Like the shrubs, right now the poison ivy vines are also in full fall color.  Here is an old osage orange tree (Maclura pomifera) growing in a hedge along the road, with poison ivy growing up its trunk and smooth sumac at its base....

Not bad color for a black and white state, is it?!

This grove of large cottonwood trees near the river is sporting several vines that are trumpeting fall right now.

The first vine I noticed was the Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), glowing several shades of deep red.

Looking more closely, I noticed that the yellowish green leaves below the Virginia creeper actually belonged to another vine, raccoon grape (Ampelopsis cordata).

A little less dense, poison ivy was nearby and showing off colors of orange and yellow and peach.

Cottonwoods (Populus deltoides) are just starting to turn their brilliant fall yellow.  Occasionally I was able to get a photo that included a cottonwood beginning its fall transformation.  Here is a cottonwood, with a nice clump of smooth sumac at its base and, if you look closely, a bit of poison ivy adding a touch of orange and yellow to the tapestry of leaves.

How many of these fall beauties do I actually want to add to my yard?  Well, I'd love to have smooth sumac!  I collected some berries and scattered them this morning.  I've also transplanted a couple plants that I've dug up from willing donors, but I'm not sure if they've survived.  Since sumac is a colonial plant, individual stems don't have many roots when dug out, and I planted them away from the house where, for better and for worse, I don't see them regularly to keep tabs on them.  I wouldn't plant smooth sumac in a small yard, but it's a gorgeous addition to acreage.


As far as cottonwoods, I have a couple large ones down in the draw.  I'd love to have more up in the "yard" area, but they have to be native Eastern Cottonwoods.  The horticultural "seedless" varieties are some weird mix of Populus genetics that don't do well around here, succumbing to cottonwood beetles just as they get up to true tree size.

Poison ivy?  I'd love NOT to have that species, but it's pretty hard to live anywhere in Kansas and not have poison ivy cropping up!  The more land you have, the more poison ivy you'll have.  At least we've decreased the amount of it we harbor - there are no more 30' patches!

We have raccoon grape, too.  It's a very aggressive vine, so I don't encourage it, but we do have it, and the birds love its tangles and berries.

Finally there's Virginia creeper.  I love Virginia creeper and I've had a few small plants show up in the flower beds.  I've left one or two, training them as groundcover.  If I had a privacy fence, I'd bury it in Virginia creeper.  However, I don't have any fences except the chain link one around the lagoon and, since I don't want it growing on either the house or garage, I'm taking each newly found baby plant on a case by case basis as to whether it stays or goes.   Each of us lives dangerously in their own style, I guess!



Here's to fall - colorful, even in Kansas!

Birds of Spring

The birds in my yard seem a little more patient with me than usual this spring.  Some even seem to be posing tolerantly to allow me to get better-than-my-normal photos of them.  (I have no special set-up for photographing birds or anything else - no blinds or special long lenses.  I don't even use a tripod, just a handheld zoom telephoto lens which I point and shoot as I walk around.)

Here are a couple not-so-common yard photos of relatively common spring birds from the last week or two....

One of the most tolerant was this northern flicker, hanging out in a honeylocust on the edge of our restoring prairie.  At first I thought it was a yellow-shafted, which is much more common here, but as I looked at the head markings more closely, I realized that it is technically a red-shafted flicker.  The lining of the tail feathers still looks more yellow to me, so it probably qualifies as an intermediary between the two, which is common.

For the last week, I've noticed up to a dozen flickers feeding in the prairie each morning when I walk with the dogs.  I didn't think they were a migratory species, but I've come to realize that they are.  Each winter I see a couple hanging around occasionally, but then in the spring I see larger groups that are especially noticeable in burned areas.  Funny to realize that this "woodpecker" is a ground feeder, particularly enjoying ants!

Eastern meadowlarks are common around here, but fairly wary about actually being approached closely.  Most of my meadowlark photos therefore show tiny birds, seemingly far off in the distance. 

While this picture isn't precisely up-close-and-personal, it's still a lot closer than I am normally able to get!

As I went out to get the paper a few mornings ago, I noticed a flock of birds in the top of a honeylocust south of our garage.  They didn't flush as I walked by...and I suddenly realized they were cedar waxwings, not the Harris sparrows that I had expected.  It was a cloudy morning and the light was terrible, but I got a couple quick photos without spooking them. 

I think they were still asleep, actually.  Once they all woke up, they disappeared in a flash, but not until I had gone back inside and then come back out to feed the rest of the birds in the backyard.

I am often able to get okay photos of red-bellied woodpeckers at my feeders, but I was particularly pleased to get this shot of a red-bellied female in the top of a tall cottonwood in our draw, even if it is a rather distant view. 

The tree, a male, is just beginning to bud out.  Its red catkin flowers will emerge soon, then the leaves will begin to appear as the catkins drop off.  Since it's a male, this tree doesn't produce the long "necklaces" of seeds that break open into the cotton of spring which we love to deplore here on the prairie.  Secretly, though, I rather wish it was a female tree.  I think the cotton floating on the breeze is graceful, almost as beautiful as the shimmer of cottonwood leaves, dancing in summer breezes.

Each year brings a different cast of characters that pose for my camera.  This year is certainly off to a whiz-bang start!