You have to look closely to spot either of these two species, the Goldenrod crab spider and the Goldenrod stowaway moth. Both fend off predators by camouflaging themselves in the inflorescences of yellow flowering plants such as goldenrod.

On a sunny afternoon last month I was in the Hidden Prairie looking for native pollinators on goldenrod when I saw a honeybee hanging at an odd angle from a goldenrod inflorescence.  It wasn’t until I looked closely that I could see that the bee had been caught in a Goldenrod crab spider’s fangs.   This spider does not spin a web.  It sits in wait on goldenrod and ambushes its prey.    The spider’s  venomous bite paralyzes the prey, then it liquefies the body contents and sucks it dry.

Goldenrod crab spider and honeybee prey

Camouflage is the Goldenrod crab spider’s, Misumina vatia, primary defense.   In this photo you can see how well this Misumina blended into the goldenrod blossom before it ambushed the honeybee.    Misumina prefers to hunt from goldenrod since this species attracts so many pollinators.  However,  it can change color (yellow or white) over a period of several days to blend into other flowers.

Goldenrod stowaway moth

Later that day we saw this  goldenrod stowaway moth, Cirrophanus triangulifer,   spending the day in a Bur marigold, Bidens polylepis, along the driveway.  Bright golden yellow with deeper gold-ochraceous markings it blends in perfectly with yellow inflorescences.   On wing in August and September its  larvae feed on Bidens species.

Bur Marigold, Bidens polylepis

This is where it all began.  The dry sandy ridge that tops the east savanna above Brush Creek is where Bill and I began the Timberhill savanna restoration.  Originally we thought  we might build our house there.  Until the previous owner told us that this site was prone to lightning strikes, that is.  It’s a good thing we took his advice.  Not only have we lost four large oak trees to lightning but this twenty five acres of open ridgetop and sharply dissected hillsides has also proven to have the highest floristic quality.

East Savanna now

The east savanna is dominated by widely spaced white oaks and a couple oak hybrids (Quercus bebbiana, Q. hawkinsiae)  over a diverse understory of sedges, grasses and forbs.  When we purchased it the midstory had filled in with ironwood and shingle oak blocking most of the sunlight from the understory plants.  However, the widely spaced wolf trees had survived  the previous owner’s wood harvests.    We began restoration there by clearing the brush which we stacked in a huge pile and burned.  Annual prescribed burns  maintained brush control and stimulated the plants.   From the first  there was enough little blue stem grass to fuel fire through the site leaving patches of burned, partially burned and unburned land.    The shingle oaks  still send up  shoots each year but fire top kills them and we pretend they are woody perennials .

Gradually the land revealed it’s true identity.  A few conservative forbs pioneered the restoration increasing their abundance and cover after every burn. False hellebore moved from the east end gap west to the driveway between the savanna and the house.  Scaly blazing star spread in all directions from  a sunny spot under one of the wolf trees. It even crossed the trail into the darker hillside woodland to the south.  On a nose slope north of  the ridgetop yellow pimpernel moved first into the adjacent woodland, then spread throughout the east woodland. Bastard toadflax became so thick we couldn’t help stepping on it. Purple milkweed bloomed in clumps of five and six instead of a few single plants.   Five years into the restoration yellow false foxglove appeared under white oaks on the east facing slopes. Rockrose and June grass  became interspersed with the other plants. The last to appear was a pink cloud of round-stemmed false foxglove  floating above a south facing slope.  Sunlight and fire had worked their magic.  Ecological succession was going the right direction at Timberhill. As the plants and fungi rearrange themselves each year one cannot help but marvel at the resilience and complexity of this ecosystem.

Scaly blazing star, Liatris squarrosa

Recalling those early restoration attempts I remember how daunted I was by the prospect of restoring all of our property.  Then I realized if we just burned a little more each year we would gradually expand the perimeter of our restoration until we reached Timberhill property lines. That’s what we did.  And it was much easier than I thought it would be. Little by little we learned by doing, we learned from our  mistakes, but trusted our instincts to make the right choices.

It has been proven that fire is essential to savanna restoration.  Fire not only controls the shade tolerant trees that invade oak woodlands, but it stimulates oak regeneration.  Side effects of fire on the land are an increase in soil organic carbon, increased nitrogen, potassium and other nutrient  availability  to plants, and accelerated decomposition of the surface litter. But running fire through all 200 acres of woodland and prairie here is a daunting task for Bill and me.  We cannot do it without help.  Timberhill is divided into  burn units, the largest of which are the East Savanna (50 acres), the West 40, and West Creek (40 acres).  To burn any of these units we need at least four people.     Occasionally we are able to get help from a professional crew, but for most burns we rely on the same friends to help each year.

Certified burn crew in West Creek Unit

Since I enjoy cooking it has become a tradition to provide box lunches and a post-burn dinner for crew.  We usually gather for the post-burn dinner in the wine cellar where we can serve up to ten people .  Selecting a dinner menu presents certain challenges since  I never know for sure until the day of the scheduled burn whether we will be able to burn, or how long the burn will take.   The crew usually begins in the late morning, and may work through the afternoon.   The entree dish must be suitable to freeze for future use or one that can cook slowly for hours without loosing its flavor.    That leaves plenty of time to prepare the side dishes and box lunches  on the day of the burn.  Over the years I’ve found three entrees that fit these specifications.

Slow cooked pepper steak can be assembled and partially cooked ahead of  time and finished in the slow cooker on the day of the burn.  An eye of round beef slow roasted in the oven for three hours or more also works well.    Our favorite, however, is venison  stew, the meat from  does harvested during the antlerless season.    This is usually the featured dish after a late winter burn.    Chunks of venison are browned with onion and  pancetta, then reduced with cynthiana wine from our vineyard and seasoned with fresh rosemary a day or two before the scheduled burn.  On burn day  it can cook for five hours in the slow cooker.   The stew goes well with  baked semolina gnocchi,  discs of semolina milk  layered with butter and parmesan cheese and browned in the oven while the crew is washing up.

Ready to celebrate another completed burn

Dessert is usually rum raisin apple cake with hot caramel sauce  or chocolate fallen souffle cake dressed up with raspberry coulis and whipped cream.   Both freeze well and can be baked ahead of time.  Of course there is always plenty of wine.

When Bill and I purchased the forty acres west of our fenceline  we thought restoration would proceed much faster than it had in our east property.   That took ten years to reveal its unique character, and new plants still appear each year.    The West 40, as we call this unit,  had never been plowed and retained remnant populations of plants not present elsewhere on our property such as Purple prairie clover and Bottle gentian.  Best of all was a white and bur oak savanna remnant.    The hydrology in this remnant was much wetter than the east savanna and I expected it to have a completely different set of plants. According to a neighbor whose family used to own this property the understory once supported a highly diverse plant community.  As a boy his daily chore had been  herding sheep in the West 40.  Each day he picked a bouquet of colorful wildflowers to take home to his mother.  He particularly liked the “bright red flower” that bloomed in mid-summer.  According to him,

“There was just them big trees.  And there used to be all kinds of wildflowers, just about any wildflower that grew.  They was abundant because it was pasture and wasn’t  plowed.  They’ll regenerate themselves if they have a chance.  Surprising how long that seed lasts.”

West 40 Savanna Before Thinning

Excited about the possibilities of restoring this piece we purchased the land in 2001. Our highest priority was to restore the savanna remnant. At the time of purchase it was sparsely stocked with mature oaks intermixed with pole and sapling mid-story trees.   Deep shade  perverted oak regeneration and suppressed the understory forbs and graminoids.   We began restoration that same year with a prescribed burn in the savanna remnant.  In 2002 we thinned it by removing all the competing mid-story and sapling tree cover under the wolf trees.    We’ve repeated dormant season prescribed burns  every year since then.

Same Site after Thinning

Knowing  its history  I expected a quick  return of the  colorful wildflowers  my neighbor had described.    But I’m still waiting.  So far the only showy forbs to reappear in the West 40 are in the prairie remnants. Except for the occasional purple milkweed,  no showy forbs have reappeared under the wolf trees.  What I have observed is a many fold  increase in graminoids, particularly sedges and Bottlebrush grass.  Tick trefoil, Three-seeded mercury, Common milkweed, Elm-leaved goldenrod, and three Galium species are the most abundant forbs.  All are commonly found in the East Savanna.  There are also scattered sapling replacement oaks.

Same site in Midsummer, 2010

No matter what the land’s history savanna restoration takes time and patience.    It’s been the seventeen years since  Bill and I began restoring Timberhill and I’m still impatient.  By now  I expected to see a colorful midsummer display in this savanna remnant.   But patience is a the lesson I have yet to learn.