
Kaw Valley Almanac for June 9-15, 2025
Many in eastern Kansas are experiencing the annual explosion of hackberry butterflies, which typically perch with their wings folded together. Here they’re sunning themselves by opening their wings.
Many in eastern Kansas are experiencing the annual explosion of hackberry butterflies, which typically perch with their wings folded together. Here they’re sunning themselves by opening their wings.
The Haskell Wetlands, once harmed by detrimental farming practices, are undergoing a revitalization due to the Indigenous stewardship of the Haskell Greenhouse team. More than two dozen volunteers helped during a restoration event Thursday.
Indigenous land stewards caring for the Haskell Wetlands are inviting all interested volunteers to join them for an evening of ecosystem restoration this week.
Butterfly milkweed, shown here in red-orange, can be anywhere from dark red to yellow in its genetic variations. Enjoy these beauties for most of June, and count the butterflies, too!
A sale this Saturday in Lawrence will offer 120 varieties of native plants that insects and pollinators rely on to survive and reproduce.
An increase in extreme heat in Kansas is making pregnancy more risky, according to a report by the nonprofit advocacy group Climate Central.
Echinacea pallida, seen in eastern Kansas, is emerging at various rates: The pink-purple ray flowers begin by shooting straight up in a circle from the edge of the flower disk, then they flatten into a horizontal disk, then curve around and down.
The three-petaled triangular blue spiderwort blooms for a day, but there is another bud below it, ready to step up and open the next day. Butterflies and hummingbirds love this plant.
The Trump administration is attempting to strike protections for the lesser prairie chicken, a bird that has teetered between threatened and endangered for decades.
The Baker Wetlands south of Lawrence will be permanently protected from development under a newly finalized restricted deed covenant, according to an announcement from Baker University.
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