Ken Lassman has been keeping this almanac for over a decade, He invites you to share your observations and photos in the comments section. You can find his book Wild Douglas County at The Raven Bookstore and The Community Mercantile in Lawrence.
July: Buffalo Mating Moon
The Osages commemorate the keystone species of the prairie, the bison, for its mating season, which used to be one of the greatest spectacles found in North America. The book The Osages has descriptions of the titanic battles between competing bulls and how they would plow up large areas of prairie sod as they pushed each other aroound. Read that and you’ll understand why the Osage clled this the Bufffalo Mating Moon.
This month is a time when many songbirds molt, or lose their colorful feathers that helped attract a mate in the spring. It is a time when many gooseberries are ripe in the woods, when warm season grasses shoot up tall and wildflowers grow taller to compete for the sun. Cicadas sing during the day, with damelflies and dragonflies eating mosquitoes while dodging the watchful eye of the bullfrog. At night, katydids begin their song while lightning bugs stitch across yards, meadows and fields.
Thunderstorms seem to lose their way, appearing, moving and disappearing almost at random this time of year, causing flash flooding at one spot while leaving nearby areas dry. A wet road at night can host steamy fog and fast jumping frogs crossing the pavement, while moonlit nights can bring out many a nocturnal animal beating the heat of the day. If the moon isn’t bright, take a look at the milky way that the summer so nicely showcases, including the constellation Sagittarius in the south, which looks like a teapot outline in the sky but holds the center of our galaxy.
Thank you so much for doing this. I have learned so much from your almanac. I live in Overland Park, so not quite Kaw Valley, but I figured I could still get away with signing up and hopefully a lot of your information would be relevant to me, and it is! Just this weekend during a jog on the trails, we noticed “there are a lot of those purple flowers this year, I wonder what those are?” and then today you let us know they are woodland phlox! What a nice surprise, and your blog has been full of so many of them. Never realized turkey vultures aren’t here year round until you mentioned it, have really learned a lot from you and appreciate you sharing your knowledge. Really enjoy your blog, thanks again!
Thanks, Debbie, and yes, the landscapes of OP are very much the same and share the natural goings-on of the lower reaches of the Kaw Valley because even tho where you are is not technically in the same watershed, it’s in the same ecoregion as the environs of Douglas County. Indeed, the Kaw Valley drains all the way out to around Limon Colorado, the entire northern half of Kansas and south of the Platte River valley in Nebraska, so the watershed isn’t exactly the best indicator of a common plant and animal association! I think of ecoregions and watersheds as being like the warp and weft of a fabric where the ecoregion may go one direction and the watershed may go another, binding this place into the fabric of life that covers our beloved planet. Feel free to share any observations you might have along the way, and keep walking the lands!