Prairie All Summer

At first the prairie teems at your feet. Two weeks later, it’s licking at your knees, then your waist, then chest — and with each new visit comes a whole new array of flowers and animals. Prairies hit their stride in the hottest months of the year, so take a trip through the grassland summertime.

June

In May and June, the shooting stars at Chiwaukee Prairie along the Wisconsin-Illinois border are rich and dense, thanks to a recent fire, which burned a few years’ growth off of encroaching shrubs. The uncommon eastern blue-eyed grass hides away in sandier prairies. Also in June, sandhill cranes nest in wet prairies. Without the animals, a prairie isn’t a prairie.

July

By July, spring flora is history. This time of year, it is easier to understand the prairie as a product of extremes. The plants and animals here evolved to succeed in drought, fire, and beating sun. Insects, such as this fritillary nectaring on a prairie milkweed, depend on these hot months to breed. Bobolinks, which breed on the prairie, peer up from prairie dock and purple prairie clover, conducting surveillance. At Kankakee Sands, a fern spreads out with blazing star.

August

Prairie wildflowers and grasses grow tall. Though many short flowers also persist, taller species generally replace shorter ones as the season progresses. Many showy species bloom. Compass plant, prairie dock, and sunflowers reach full height — six feet or more. At Lockport Prairie, a morning haze cloaks nodding wild onion. A picture wing fly stops to rest. Savanna plants such as the showy goldenrod and rough blazing star grow between scattered trees.

September

Even before the air cools, the prairie feels September’s winds of change. Goldenrod brightens the land, but the sun is less intense. Tall plants offer every shape of seed, adopting shades of brown and red (though many greens remain). As plants go dormant, small surprises — gentians and asters — poke up from below. The northern harrier arrives, gliding low on the hunt. The prairie is preparing for winter. Before long, it will be covered in snow. In spring, plants reemerge, pushing through the dead thatch from last summer, or from the fresh black slate of a spring burn.