Desert? Cacti? In Wisconsin?

Looking for something to pass a few hours with Michelangelo today, we considered visiting one of the state's designated natural areas. We wound up going to Spring Green Preserve, known as the 'Wisconsin Desert'. It features a rolling sand prairie on an old Wisconsin River terrace and harbors a unique flora and fauna that are adapted to the hot, droughty environment.

Given that we are in a bit of a drought these days, Tom joked that this would give us an idea of what the whole state will look like by fall. 

The dry sandy soils contain many desert-like plants including prickly pear cactus which seemed quite abundant. Several sand blows, with shifting dunes and open sand, are scattered throughout. Bird life is diverse and includes large numbers of rare open country birds, but the bugs are the most unusual of the Spring Green fauna. Several of the spiders and insects are not known from any other site in Wisconsin. Of special interest are the black widow (!) and wolf spiders and predatory (!) wasps. A large pocket gopher population has created patches of open ground where short-lived plants grow while the tunnels are used by many of the reserve's 10 species of snake (again, !)

It was a bit beastly hot when we got there at midday, and we did not walk the entire 3 mile path. Nor did we see any of the more dangerous fauna, although we heard a couple of quite distinctive bird calls. Michelangelo and I tried unsuccessfully to spot an Eastern meadowlark, said the be common there. We thought perhaps that was one of the birds we heard, and I checked it out later on Cornell's bird site. Could be, could be. My sound memory is not that great, making it hard to know for sure.

So in one three-day weekend, Michelangelo got to work on the railroad, take a boat ride on the river, march in a parade and visit a desert. And all within a short distance of our house.