Rain brings out the beauty at Navarino prairie

Late summer blooms line the nature center walkways
By: 
Story and photos by Carol Ryczek
Editor-in-chief

Black-eyed, brown-eyed or ox-eyed; showy or stiff, false or bouncing: The names attached to prairie flowers and grasses are as diverse as the plants that cover the grounds of the Navarino Nature Center in late summer.

A small group of hikers explored the plant community Saturday with nature center naturalist Tim Ewing. They found, between rain showers, a bright group of flowering plants that the nature center brought in to create a prairie on what had been a “pine barrens.”

The area’s pine forests had been cut by settlers to grow crops, but the Great Depression of the 1930s forced many farmers to abandon their land, leaving the acreage in the slow process of natural reclamation. The pine barrens that resulted include some prairie plants along with bushes and scrub trees.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources began a prairie reclamation in the area, and in the past few years the nature center staff has been building the prairie environment with hundreds of transplanted plants. The plants bloom at different times of the summer, Ewing said, but late August and early September are ideal for finding tall, colorful wild plants.

The walk through the prairie trails is one of the few in-person activities at the center this year, Ewing said. Although there have been camps for kids, with attendance strictly limited, more parents have opted for take-home camp kits that bring nature home instead of bringing kids to nature.

The prairie walk on Saturday was an alternative to an annual trolley ride through the prairie, which was abandoned because of the difficulty in social distancing on a trolley.

Still, William Church, Cecil, and his 4-year-old son, Cillian Church, thought it worth it to get a hike in between thunderstorms.

“Cillian is interested in everything,” William Church said, also noting that the trip was an opportunity to do a family activity away from the house.

On the walk, Ewing pointed to different types of sunflowers, telling Cillian that while some only got as tall as he was, other types would be taller than his father.

Being the shortest in the group proved to be an asset for Cillian, who discovered a blue spiderwort at his eye level. The plant only blooms for about four hours, Ewing said, so he was lucky to spot it.

The Navarino Nature Center is a private, nonprofit organization located at W5646 Lindsten Road, Shiocton. Information on future programs is available at https://www.navarino.org.

cryczek@newmedia-wi.com