Suburban Savanna – 7

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This month I am thinking about the changes in wildlife I am already seeing in my yard.

Birds: We have bird feeders, but I am noticing more birds finding food in our yard as well. This time of year, there are seeds (coneflowers and pokeweed are the most obvious). The enlarged bed of violets attracted a lot of bird attention last winter when it was just debris!

Moles (and maybe an armadillo): I see the evidence but not the animals themselves. Sometimes they destroy areas with their digging but, so far, it has only been turf areas rather than the plants I have added. I tend to think of them as breaking up the clay and mixing in plant debris – improving the soil.

Insects and other invertebrates: Something is eating pokeweed and I assume it is an insect. The first year I noticed pokeweed growing in my yard they looked pristine but now something is eating them…the balancing in nature! There are more fireflies in my yard every year too. When I mow, I see small insects raise up before the mower – another sign of increasing life in the yard (and I haven’t been getting bites, which is a relief).

Squirrels and chipmunks: My neighbor’s oak is probably the home of the squirrels, but they are frequently in my yard; their numbers haven’t changed since I added more native plants. I’ve seen one chipmunk and it might have been passing through. The occasional cats that also come through might keep them at bay. It would be great to see more chipmunks!

Skunk: I’ve seen one in the neighborhood on an early morning walkabout as I was leaving for my monthly trek to Texas. It might have just been passing through.

I haven’t seen any deer and there is no evidence of them in my yard (no new plants eaten almost entirely, no scat). This is different from a lot of suburban areas where an overpopulation of deer is problematic. Hopefully my situation without deer continues. It does mean that I need to play the role of big herbivore and prune/trample!

Opossum and racoon are probably around but I haven’t observed them or their scat.  

The main animal I would prefer not to have in yard that is there occasionally: a domestic cat. It has a negative impact on wildlife like birds and chipmunks!

Previous Suburban Savanna Posts:

September 2026 – Fall riches

August 2026 – Controlling too much growth

July 2026 - Water

June 2026 – Shade Garden

May 2026 – Planting Natives

April 2026 – Overview

Gem aGem and Mineral Shownd Mineral Show

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My daughter and son-in-law had already made their purchases at the Gem and Mineral Show in Springfield the day before…but she offered to make another visit with us. I took a few pictures around her yard (holly berries, rose blooming, surface roots of a dying maple, lichen on the trunk of the dying maple) before she emerged from her house.

Walking around the show did not take long since I was not buying a lot; we got there shortly after opening and before the crowds too. It was interesting to see the myriad of items from vendors.  

My daughter and my husband didn’t buy anything at the show. I found a vender with petrified wood (from private land near Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona); one of the pieces had lines that looked like tree rings…and the color was more similar to wood too. I bought it to add to my tree materials.

I also bought a small bowl that was petrified wood…which I will use for bar soap!

When we got back to my daughter’s house, we went in to see their new lighting in their mineral cabinets. My two favorite items (armadillo dermal bone and shells) were biological. But the lighting was good on them too!

I did a few photographs of the specimens though the glass cases and there was a lot less glare from the lighting!

Springfield Conservation Nature Center

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I took a short break before the Homeschool Fair started last week to look at the plants around the Springfield Conservation Nature Center building. My favorite was probably the American beautyberry! The location was the first place I saw beautyberry when I moved to Springfield. Of course, there were other fall blooming plants and some seed pods as well.

Inside the building I noticed the Mushroom photography exhibit.

I didn’t have enough time look more thoroughly at anything….maybe I’ll make another visit in a few weeks.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 17, 2026

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

10/06/2026 Smithsonian Magazine New Research Shows That These Ancient Egyptian Servants May Have Been Brutally Sacrificed and Buried Alongside Their Pharaohs - Forensic research has identified deliberate and fatal wounds on skulls from simple grave sites near First Dynasty royal tombs in Upper Egypt. by the beginning of Egypt’s Second Dynasty, around 2730 B.C.E., subsidiary graves had all but disappeared.

10/06/2026 Planetizen NYC’s landfills will soon overflow — expanding them invites health risks -New York City’s trash will exceed its landfill capacity within 16 to 25 years. The landfill is already the single largest source of methane emissions in New York state.

10/06/2026 Yale Environment 360 Caribbean Nations Have Installed Twice as Much Solar as Official Figures Suggest - In the Caribbean, energy shocks are particularly pronounced as island nations with little in the way of fossil fuel reserves are heavily dependent on imports. Renewable energy offers a cheaper alternative. Across the Caribbean, people have installed roughly twice as many solar panels as official statistics would suggest. A new report calls on countries to make it easier for new solar installations to connect to the grid.

10/03/2026 Clean Technica Texas PUC Greenlights Coal Plant Closure & Renewables Construction - The Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) ruled that Southwestern Public Service Company (SPS) can proceed with closing its Tolk coal plant near Lubbock and constructing renewable energy and battery storage to provide reliable, clean electricity to Southwest Power Pool customers. When Tolk closes, it will save abundant water in a drought-prone region, millions of ratepayer dollars, and eliminate millions of tons of harmful pollution every year, making rural West Texas a healthier place to live.

10/03/2026 Science Daily Vitamin C linked to fewer deaths in blood disorder trial - In a phase 2 trial of people with precancerous or low risk blood cancers, daily vitamin C did not slow abnormal cell growth, but it was linked to favorable changes in inflammation and fewer serious complications. An exploratory follow up also found fewer deaths among participants taking vitamin C than among those receiving placebo.

10/2026 Archaeology Magazine A change in Fashion - Ken Hill stands out from the otherwise flat terrain of Norfolk County on England’s east coast. The site is now recognized as having yielded the greatest assemblage of prehistoric jewelry to have been found anywhere in Europe. They may be evidence of a society-wide ritual of retiring an old-fashioned symbol of authority by burying it.

10/07/2026 The Conversation Rising seas threaten the world’s migratory shorebirds - Among the 37 studies that we examined, 21 predicted negative impacts of sea-level rise on shorebird habitats such as declines in habitat area or quality, while 17 predicted negative impacts on shorebird populations or individuals such as decreased survival or abundance. Sea-level rise is expected to drive substantial habitat loss at many sites of international importance for migratory shorebirds. These include San Francisco Bay and Humboldt Bay in the United States, the Colorado River Delta and Marismas Nacionales in Mexico and the Yellow Sea region in East Asia, each of which supports 150,000 to more than one million shorebirds annually. Urgent action will be required to preserve shorebirds and their fascinating migrations for generations to come.

10/7/2026 BBC Future Inside an active Antarctic volcano, gentoo penguins are flourishing with climate change - The global population of gentoos increased by around 11% between 2013 and 2020, with more marked increases along the Western Antarctic Peninsula at 23%. A suite of traits help gentoos deal with climate change. They're not fussy eaters – unlike their two closest relatives, they'll switch their diet from krill to fish and back again depending on what's around. And if their eggs are destroyed by a sudden flood or a freak snowstorm – something growing more common with climate change, Lynch notes – they can simply lay more eggs. Despite its eruptions and industrial past, Deception Island remains a unique wildlife hotspot. The outside of Deception Island is one of the most stunning amphitheaters of penguinness that we have in the Antarctic.

10/7/2026 Clean Technica The Solar Century: Landmark Moments in the History of Solar Energy - Since the creation of the first silicon solar cell 70 years ago, solar leaders have been innovating, improving efficiency, lowering costs, and growing this American-born technology into an essential part of our nation’s energy system. In 2025, solar and storage accounted for 79% of new electricity generating capacity added to the grid, and the industry employed over 260,000 Americans. In May of 2026, solar energy generated more electricity than coal for the first time in American history.

10/7/2026 Smithsonian Magazine A Ship Carrying Stacks of Ancient Dishware Sank Off the Coast of Turkey 2,100 Years Ago. Its Ceramic Cargo Is Still Remarkably Intact - Stacks upon stacks of plates; bowls; and trays purpose-built for different foods, such as nuts, fish and soup. The amphorae were probably made on the Aegean Islands, while the bulk of the plates and bowls were likely manufactured in the port of Rhosus, now the Turkish city of Arsuz.

Life Magazine in 1951

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Continuing my look at Life Magazines on Internet Archive….

As I looked at the issues from 1951, advertisements reflected products like Coca-Cola, Mounds candy bars, Bell telephone, airline flights, Life Savers candy, Alice in Wonderland movie, cat food, Avon cosmetics, penicillin by Merck, and Chrismas ads for eggnog and 7Up. There were pictures of construction, the beginning of an avalanche, Yellowstone in winter, the Dalai Lama traveling before he left Tibet to live in India, Korean war, Peary in the Arctic, and A-Bomb tests. They were all part of what the publisher thought was newsworthy in 1951!

Life Magazine 1951-01-01 - Cotton stockpile

Life Magazine 1951-01-08 - Coca-Cola through 65 years (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-01-15 - 50 year ago – Spindletop in Beaumont, TX

Life Magazine 1951-01-22 - Cinderella never had it so bad (outside London)

Life Magazine 1951-01-29 - Mounds Coconut (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-02-05 - Castle Geyser new Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park

Life Magazine 1951-02-12 - Career girl, 1965 (Bell Telephone advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-02-19 - Jungle Gardens in Louisiana (swampland refuge)

Life Magazine 1951-02-26 - Glow of A-bomb explosion

Life Magazine 1951-03-05 - Air pipeline to Korea

Life Magazine 1951-03-12 - Young avalanche in the French Alps

Life Magazine 1951-03-19 - Pumpkin-like house

Life Magazine 1951-03-26 - Dark days in Iran after premier’s murder

Life Magazine 1951-04-02 - Blooms in central California

Life Magazine 1951-04-09 - Grandma flying (TWA advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-04-16 - Delaware Memorial Bridge construction

Life Magazine 1951-04-23 - Dalai Lama traveling

Life Magazine 1951-04-30 - Modern church design

Life Magazine 1951-05-07 - Refugees in China

Life Magazine 1951-05-14 - Peary’s fellow discoverers at the North Pole

Life Magazine 1951-05-21 - Earliest humans

Life Magazine 1951-05-28 - Paratrooper

Life Magazine 1951-06-04 - Worse main street (in Bellevue, OH)

Life Magazine 1951-06-11 - Children in peril (from narcotics)

Life Magazine 1951-06-18 - Pep-o-mint Life Savers (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-06-25 - Martha’s Vineyard from above

Life Magazine 1951-07-02 - US House Statuary Hall

Life Magazine 1951-07-09 - Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-07-16 - After flood, mud (in Kansas)

Life Magazine 1951-07-23 - North Korean soldier reaction to photographer

Life Magazine 1951-07-30 - Paris on her 2,000 birthday

Life Magazine 1951-08-06 - Insects survive by mimicry

Life Magazine 1951-08-13 - Drought cracks Arizona

Life Magazine 1951-08-20 - Festival of Britain

Life Magazine 1951-08-27 - W.R. Hearst – a quiet end

Life Magazine 1951-09-03 - Puss’n’Boots Cat food (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-09-10 - California lights

Life Magazine 1951-09-17 - Children without clutter

Life Magazine 1951-09-24 - Fantastic weapons

Life Magazine 1951-10-01 - Largest helicopter

Life Magazine 1951-10-08 - Pelicans at West Palm Beach

Life Magazine 1951-10-15 - Avon Cosmetics (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-10-22 - Plasma storage

Life Magazine 1951-10-22 - The wonder of penicillin (Merck advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-11-05 - Port of New York

Life Magazine 1951-11-12 - Yale’s 250th autumn

Life Magazine 1951-11-19 - Baltimore’s Friendship airport

Life Magazine 1951-11-26 - The American road

Life Magazine 1951-12-03 - Stream pollution – an Ohio creek

Life Magazine 1951-12-10 - First underground A-bomb blast in Nevada

Life Magazine 1951-12-17 - Borden’s Egg Nog (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-12-24 - Christmas (7up Advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-12-31 - Hillside farms in Japan

Linden’s Prairie

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I had visited Linden’s Prairie in May 2025 (blog post here). My first fall visit was last week! My daughter was driving so I took some pictures as the roads got more narrow and then unpaved as we got closer.

The asters and goldenrod…a few sunflowers and azure blue sage….were the flowers still blooming (and there were a few pollinators – bees and butterflies).

I was pleased to recognize goat’s rue and lead plant from the leaves! In the springtime it is easier with their flowers.

There were woody plants to observe too: black cherry, winged sumac, and post oak (with galls).

The most numerous was winged (or shining) sumac. Some of the plants still had green leaves…others were already red. The prescribed burns might make them less dense…but doesn’t take them out completely!

It was an hour well spent!

Afterward my daughter and I went out to lunch and there were maples around the parking lot beginning to change color. We’ve had a very dry summer so are anticipating a muted fall.

Later we both had allergies…something that made our eyes and nose very watery. Both ozone and ragweed pollen were high – so it could be that combination.

4th week of Master Naturalist Core Training

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The classroom session during the 4th week included lectures on soil, flora of the Ozarks, and fungi. It was the most sedentary class of the whole series, but the lectures were so good that no one complained!

The field trip was to a place than I had not been before – land/home of a fellow master naturalist. The drive in was a clue to the special place that it is.

The topic of the field trip was to learn about invasives. We started with short hike first – noticing the natives…remembering the invasives that we would come back to remove. I took pictures of things we’d leave and the creek that was dry because our area has had so little rain this summer.

The focus was on bush honeysuckle, multiflora rose, and wintercreeper.  I was keen to see how well the Extractigater tree puller tool worked on bush honeysuckle. It works very well although I think the classic model will work for my needs and not be as heavy. The one in the picture is the Big Daddy version with a BigFoot Accessory. We had a big pile of bush honey suckle with roots very quickly using both tools. The Classic works for stems up to 2” diameter….and I order one for me the day after the field trip!

We discussed what we had learned at the end and learned the process used to establish a Conservation Easement on the property…what it meant for the land long term.

A learning experience re invasives and land conservation.

Home School Fair

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Last week, my Master Naturalist chapter had tables at a Home School Fair – a hectic 2+ hours for us with between 200-300 people doing the 4 different ‘road trip’ themed activities we had: nature journaling (citing the Gateway Arch and Lewis and Clark journals), sand art (Mohave Desert), petroglyphs (Petroglyph National Monument), and petrified wood/tree rings (Painted Desert/Petrified Forest).

I appreciated my wagon to get things from my car to the tables!

We had a few pieces of petrified wood for the children to handle – realize that they were rock…and talked about living trees and tree rings with pine tree cookies. We opted to include the Highway 13 Butterfly Trail information on our table since it is a ‘road trip’ closer to home and many of the pollinator gardens/prairies still have plenty to see this fall.

I contributed a volcanic rock my husband and I got many years ago in New Mexico as part of the pan with black sand --- provided a clue about where black sand comes from.

The petroglyph materials were brought by another volunteer…those rocks were heavy! The pens used on the rocks were a hit with many children (they made more elaborate images rather than petroglyphs much of the time).

This was the third year I have participated in the event. Each one has been unique…but worth the effort for the number of interested students/parents that come to the fair.

Missouri Evening Primrose Seed Pods

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I’ve enjoyed my Missouri Evening Primrose plant all during this growing season….so many big beautiful yellow flowers.

They are past blooming now, but I discovered the seed pods recently – still nestled in the leaves and, at first, looking like some leaves that drifted in.

On closer examination they are winged….and hold seeds inside!

I will leave the rest of the pods in the garden…checking them occasionally to see how they eventually open on their own.

Butterfly House Finale (2)

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There were still plenty of butterflies and moths to see in the last weeks of the season in the Roston Native Butterfly House at the Springfield Botanical Garden. I’ll miss the conversations with visitors and the quiet times with the butterflies. This year there were times when it was too busy to take pictures and other times when I decided I just wanted to watch the butterflies fluttering or the caterpillars eating. Now the house is closed, and I am savoring the pictures of the past few weeks.

The weather is saying warm and I have fall nectar plants in my yard, so I anticipate seeing butterflies around my house for a while longer. But we are on the glide path to winter and no butterflies. I often feel that the annual pause in seeing butterflies make their reappearance in the spring more precious.  

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 10, 2026

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

09/30/2026 NPR Swiss glaciers suffer another year of record ice loss - Switzerland's glaciers lost more than 5% of their ice in 2026, marking another year of rapid decline. The loss reflects a wider global trend: Glaciers around the world have been shrinking at increasingly rapid rates, a phenomenon scientists link directly to global warming.

09/30/2026 Clean Technica Ameren Missouri Proposes Pollution-Heavy Future to Power Data Centers -Ameren Missouri filed a proposed long-range energy plan with its regulators at the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC). If approved as proposed, Ameren Missouri would significantly increase its reliance on fossil fuels, including a large increase in gas-burning power plants and extended coal-burning at its Labadie and Sioux plants. Labadie is the deadliest coal plant in the country.

09/29/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Rare, Double-Headed Turtle Hatchling Discovered on Cape Cod - The tiny diamondback terrapin was brought to a wildlife center on September 17. At the time, the creature weighed about as much as a nickel.

09/29/2026 Science Daily The ice blasting from Saturn's moon Enceladus is stranger than scientists realized - Saturn's moon Enceladus is covered in ice, but beneath that frozen shell lies a global ocean. Near the moon's south pole, fractures in the crust release water vapor and ice particles into space. Those particles give scientists an unusual way to study an alien ocean without having to drill through kilometers of ice. These salt-rich grains are far more chemically diverse than an average ocean composition would suggest

09/29/2026 BBC Future The US state replacing power plants with home batteries - Spread across thousands of ordinary homes, this "power plant" has become Vermont's largest power source. It's protecting owners from outages and providing cheaper, cleaner energy. Whichever technologies end up powering virtual power plants, they're likely to involve local communities more than traditional energy systems have. People working in large groups, he says, can be as big as a power plant.

09/25/2026 Yale Environment 360 Alaska’s ‘Rusting’ Waters More Acidic Than Mining Wastewater - As the Arctic warms and tundra thaws, minerals long trapped in frozen soil are leaching into rivers, turning them orange and acidic. Analyzing records of water quality, researchers also determined that rusting began in the summer of 2019, the hottest summer on record in the state of Alaska. Since then, rusting has been recorded in more than 200 rivers in Alaska, as well as in waterways across much of northern Canada. There are fears that rusting may have led to the collapse of the chinook salmon fishery in the region.

09/30/2026 Clean Technica Is the US Going to End DEAD LAST In Vehicle Electrification? - If current trends continue, it’s very easy to see the US being the last country in the world — not just the last major auto market or major economy — to electrify its light vehicle market.

09/30/2026 Science Daily NASA's Perseverance Mars rover finds groundwater, lakes, and hot fluids in one place - The Margin Unit was not shaped by a single lake environment. Instead, it became a meeting point for several different water systems that altered the same rocks at different stages of Mars' history.

10/01/2026 Planetizen Evidence-based planning in a time of information overload - Information has exploded in the past few decades, including research information relevant to planning. The new landscape of open-access publications has benefits…and some problems. An important problem is that the onus of judging the quality of the research is left to the reader. And yet it may not be obvious to the reader which kind of journal they are accessing. Furthermore, researchers face publication fees. There may be an emerging role for librarians to help the profession manage information more effectively, though the enduring question is: who would pay?

10/01/2026 The Conversation 3 iconic animals show the value of the US Endangered Species Act – and the harm in stripping it away - The new interpretations, if they hold up to court challenges, could leave a vast number of endangered species at higher risk. Many of the country’s shipping, logging, mining and development practices are influenced by the Endangered Species Act’s protections. In some cases, entire species could face extinction. Featured species: Florida panther, North Atlantic right whale, Monarch butterfly. Hunting is not the primary threat today to the Florida panther, the North Atlantic right whale or the monarch butterfly. Their survival instead relies on the pine flatwoods being in good health, the ocean remaining quiet, and milkweed corridors existing across the continent.

Conservation Planning eBook

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My book of the week is a 2018 publication from the Missouri Department of Conservation. Its premise is that there are stewardship practices suitable for every land use and ever population density. We all can work to implement conservation planning tools in ways that will benefit the place we call home and the people we call neighbors. We cannot continue to think and act in ways that assume that urban/suburban areas are incompatible with natural resource conservation!

 Conservation Planning Tools for Missouri Communities: A Reference Manual

Butterfly House Finale (1)

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The Roston Native Butterfly House at the Springfield Botanical Garden closed for the season as of last Sunday. There were still plenty of caterpillars even in the last weeks – tiger swallowtails, giant swallowtails, red spotted admirals, black swallowtails, cecropias, and monarchs.

There were a few chrysalises and cocoons too.

During my last two Sunday morning shifts there were about 90 people that visited. It helped that the temperatures had cooled down a little from the 90s earlier in September.

Missouri Woodland Mentor Series

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The Missouri Extension offered a 9-part Woodland Mentor series of webinars from January to September 2026. I managed to see all 9 of them as they were recorded! The webinar schedule was:

  • January - Introduction

  • February – How we value Missouri woods

  • March – Why we cut trees to manage trees

  • April – Birds need managed woods

  • May – Forest species of concern

  • June – Enhancing the woods for desired wildlife

  • July – Threats to the woods

  • August – Know your woods

  • September - Where do we go from here?

There was at least one other in in the class that is like me – a master naturalist in a suburb that does not own a woodland and I hope to start an interaction with them and share ideas. I’ve already decided that my primary path forward is to transition my yard into a savanna…and encourage other people in my neighborhood to move in that direction. I’ve been posting about the suburban savanna idea monthly and my winter project will be to pull together a presentation for any audience I can find that might be interested!

3rd week of Master Naturalist Core Training

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The third week of core training focused on volunteering. Two helpers unexpectedly did not show up so the class was a little stressful for me but still turned out to be an excellent class for the students!

I picked up three tables needed for the field trip from our storage unit before the class and they were dirtier (dust and cobwebs) than I expected…so I got help from my husband to get them unfolded and sprayed clean on our driveway the next day!

The field trip was on a Saturday. After a lecture about how the native butterfly house is sustained, there were 4 rotations where the students shadowed a volunteer….as close as we could get to hands on volunteering. The 4 rotations were:

The butterfly house

The caterpillar café – where we all saw lots of caterpillars and plants they need…and I took a lot of pictures

The bison table (which we do as a school program or a table at festivals). The only picture I took was of the front lower jaw!

Rotten logs (which we do on a tarp on the ground or a table – usually at an outdoor event where there will be lots of children)…and always find a lot of critters….and details for logs themselves.

At least one of the groups got to release a tagged monarch butterfly! And several bought some plants that were on sale in the gardens during the lunch break.

2nd week of Master Naturalist Core Training

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The second week for Missouri Master Naturalist Core Training focused on ecosystems and populations…particularly water and streams (and riparian zones). The class session started with a gathering outside to play a web-of-life game (note the string). The light was beginning to wane by the time we finished!

The field trip was to a place along Bull Creek south of Springfield. We organized carpools since the road should not be attempted by low clearance cars!

I enjoyed some quiet time after the flurry of activity getting everyone organized into groups and out to their first rotation.

Then I went on a short hike into the woods with one of the groups.

During the last rotation time – another quiet time for me, I noticed some yellow and orange butterflies in a sun filled area and went over to investigate. Sleepy orange butterflies!

I looked around…and almost stepped on the senna – which is the food plant for their caterpillars!

When the gear was brought back from the creek – there was a container with a large dragonfly larva….a great finale for my field trip pictures!

Native American Heritage Celebration

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Master Naturalists had 2 tables at the Native American Heritage Celebration that took place on the Wonders of Wildlife parking lot recently. This was my second year to volunteer at the event and much easier than last year since I was only volunteering one shift on each of 2 days (rather than most of the 3 days last year). Some of the core training students got some early volunteer hours at the event as well.

One table was dedicated to bison – with a full table of things made from bison parts. The other table was caterpillars of native moths/butterflies: luna moth, black swallowtail butterfly, and monarch butterfly.

On the first morning of the celebration, I walked around and enjoyed the displays of pumpkins and gourds.

One of the other educational tables was showing the ‘three sisters’ – beans, corn, and squash. They also had some wonderful large sunflower seed heads.

Probably the most dramatic event at our table was the emergence of a monarch butterfly from a chrysalis that had been on the plant with the caterpillars on the last day – and before I arrived. It had flown to a nearby gourd so I still go to see it and take a portrait!

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 3, 2026

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

09/23/2026 NASA Boom Year for Desert Blooms – In Western Australia

09/23/2026 Yale Environment 360 This Map Shows Where Warming Has Accelerated - Starting in the 1980s, warming began to accelerate in a few regions, first in the eastern Mediterranean and North Pacific, and later in New Zealand, southeast China, Bolivia, and the Gulf of Mexico. In some places, scientists speculate that efforts to slash pollution have caused warming to speed up. Sulfur dioxide, produced chiefly by coal power plants, blocks sunlight, with a cooling effect. In China, for instance, efforts to slash coal plant pollution have produced both clearer skies and a recent surge in warming.

09/22/2026 Smithsonian Magazine The Human Brain Might Be Made of Two Distinct Nervous Systems That Got Squished Together - The front of the brain, called the forebrain, and the back of the brain, or the hindbrain, form independently during embryonic development. The findings hint that our ancestors had two distinct nervous systems that, over millions of years of evolution, became tightly packed. The discovery means that we can now grow neurons from the back of the brain, the hindbrain, in a Petri dish and study their functions

09/27/2026 Science Daily Scientists found a surprising driver of Alzheimer’s outside the brain - Scientists found that immune cells contributing to Alzheimer’s-related brain damage may be activated in lymph nodes outside the brain before traveling into the nervous system. Blocking this pathway in mice dramatically reduced neurodegeneration and preserved cognitive abilities, pointing to a potentially more accessible treatment target.

09/25/2026 NWF Blog Leave the Leaves to Attract Birds - Backyard birds may love your feeders, but most of their food comes from foraging in the natural environment. The leaf layer is a great place to forage. Under the leaves hide many food sources: fallen nuts and seeds, insects, and invertebrates. The leaves provide a moist environment where many of these small creatures thrive and hide. 

09/25/2026 BBC Future A mysterious organ in the sperm whale's head gives it the power to sink ships - Sperm whales have a huge head. In fact, their heads make up around a third of their overall body length. Within the forehead is a large fatty, squishy organ called the spermaceti – unique to their species. This organ is filled with an oily substance also called spermaceti. The organ has enough buffering that whales could use their head as a ram without risking damage.

09/28/2026 I’m Plastic Free Best Plastic-Free Apple Watch Bands (Non-Toxic & PFAS-Free) for 2026 - You wear your Apple Watch every single day on the thin skin of your wrist. You sweat in it, and yes, sometimes you also get allergic reactions to the materials of the wrist band. The best plastic-free Apple Watch bands use materials like organic cotton, cork, or stainless-steel alloys instead of standard fluoroelastomer plastic, which is the material most Apple Sport Bands are made from.

09/23/2026 Science Daily The “big one” might not come alone: Two major West Coast faults may strike back to back - The Cascadia subduction zone and northern San Andreas fault may sometimes rupture in rapid succession, according to evidence preserved in 3,100 years of ocean sediments. If such synchronization happened again, several major West Coast cities could face emergencies at nearly the same time. If they both went off together, then you've got potentially San Francisco. Portland, Seattle and Vancouver all in an emergency situation in a compressed timeframe.

09/22/2026 Artnet Hilla Rebay Helped Shape the Guggenheim. Now Her Own Art Is Getting Its Due - We know Hilla Rebay today as the driving force behind New York’s Guggenheim Museum. As co-founder and inaugural director of the institution, her modern taste shaped its collection and her imagination animated its architecture. But her own career as an artist has faded from view. Los Angeles-based Weinstein Gallery will surface a trove of the German visionary’s paintings and collages, placing them in conversation with works by artists she championed, including László Moholy-Nagy, Alice Trumbull Mason, Paul Klee, and Rudolf Bauer. 

09/14/2026 Archaeology Magazine Denisovan Fossils and Possible Tools Uncovered in China - Fossils from at least three Denisovan individuals who lived between 167,000 and 134,000 years ago have been discovered in southwestern China's Bianfu Cave. They were found near butchered animal remains and more than 1,300 tools.

eBotanical Prints – August 2026

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Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in September – all are available for browsing on Internet Archive. There are several series this month: 4 volumes of nature-printed British seaweeds, 3 volumes about Volvox, and 5 volumes of The Plant World (a series I had found previously but somehow skipped these volumes!

My list of eBotanical Prints books now totals 3,443 eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here.

Click on any sample image from September’s 20 books to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume where there are a lot more botanical illustrations to browse.

Enjoy the September 2026 eBotanical Prints!

Pennsylvania Trees * Illick, Joseph S. * sample image * 1928

Plantes etrang par Aubriet * Aubriet, Claude * sample image * 1722

Papillons, plantes fleurs et animaux, peints par Aubriet * Aubriet, Claude * sample image * 1722

Guide to Forestry * Illick, Joseph S. * sample image * 1922

Laubmoose * Warnstorf, Carl * sample image * 1904

Leber- und Torfmoose * Warnstorf, Carl * sample image * 1903

Gymnosperms; structure and evolution * Chamberlain, Charles Joseph * sample image * 1935

Mitteilungen der Deutschen dendrologischen gesellschaft * Deutsche Dendrologische Gesellschaft  * sample image * 1892

The nature-printed British sea-weeds : a history, accompanied by figures and dissections of the Algae of the British Isles V3 * Johnstone, William Grosart; Croall, Alexander; Bradbury Henry * sample image * 1859

The nature-printed British sea-weeds : a history, accompanied by figures and dissections of the Algae of the British Isles V1 * Johnstone, William Grosart; Croall, Alexander; Bradbury Henry * sample image * 1859

The nature-printed British sea-weeds : a history, accompanied by figures and dissections of the Algae of the British Isles V2 * Johnstone, William Grosart; Croall, Alexander; Bradbury Henry * sample image * 1859

The nature-printed British sea-weeds : a history, accompanied by figures and dissections of the Algae of the British Isles V4 * Johnstone, William Grosart; Croall, Alexander; Bradbury Henry * sample image * 1860

Le Volvox V1 * Janet, Charles * sample image * 1923

Le Volvox V2 * Janet, Charles * sample image * 1922

Le Volvox V3 * Janet, Charles * sample image * 1912

The Plant World Vol XXII 1919 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1919

The Plant World Vol XXI 1918 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1918

The Plant World Vol XX 1917 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1817

The Plant World Vol XIX 1916 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1817

The Plant World Vol XII 1909 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1909

Ten Little Celebrations – September 2026

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September always seems to be a busy month – but this year seems busier than most with the overlay of the Missouri Master Naturalist core training that I am facilitating. There has been a lot to celebrate within the increased level of activity!

Wild Ozarks video – again. Before the core training started, I watched the video again since we were asking the students to view it. I celebrated it all over again!

Core training started. I celebrated when we finally got the roster finalized and got the training started. There were 2 classes and 2 field trips in the last weeks of September.

Cooler morning butterfly house shift. Toward the end of September, the days finally started to be a little cooler. I celebrated that it only got into the low 80s….warm enough for the butterflies to be active but comfortable for humans too!

Rockspan. It was a wonderful place for a field trip – even though the day was hot. I celebrated the breeze, the special location, and that the core training students seemed to enjoy the nature journal session that I hosted for one of their rotations.

Green Heron at Ha Ha Tonka. Seeing a Green Heron is always a celebration for me. Of course, the state park has a lot of great things to see…this was just my favorite for that visit.

Imperial Moth Caterpillars. Celebrated seeing another species that has large caterpillars.

Tree ID workshop. Celebrated seeing so many cuttings from native trees…and the lecture pointing out characteristics to clinch the id.

Field trip to Bull Creek. Another special place…new to most of the core training students. I always find something to celebrate there and this time it was probably observing the students experience it for the first time.

Woodland management in action. I celebrated a field trip to see places where the strategies described in webinars I’d viewed had been applied.

Butterflies. There are more butterflies in my yard than last year…maybe because of the native plants I’ve added. Cause for celebration!