Some Buggy's Watching Me

One of my favorite photographs is the one of a young chimpanzee reaching out to touch Jane Goodall’s face. This photograph was taken many months after Jane has started quietly and patiently observing the chimpanzees. Eventually her patience paid off and the chimps felt safe enough to make contact. I love the idea of being so close to nature that nature wants to touch you back.

Last month I had a wildlife encounter of the entomological kind. I was in Spruce Woods Provincial Park to observe the insect pollinators of the rare Hairy Prairie Clover (Dalea villosa) plant. Like Jane, I found that that the best way to ensure good observations was to simply sit down, keep still and shut up. Movement, especially sudden ones, and noise frightens the insects away. Fortunately for me it doesn’t take months for insects to become accustomed to you. After a few minutes of sitting still all sorts of marvelous insects the like of which I’ve never seen before were swarming over the plants.

As it turns out I wasn’t the only creature interested in observing strange animals.  I was the subject of much curiosity by my backbone-challenged subjects. A long-legged wasp investigated my camera bag. Then, a shiny copper bug landed on my hand and probed me with its proboscis. A grasshopper jumped on my shoe and began delicately nibbling one of my laces. A large cicada landed on my hip with a loud thump to check me out. But the most thrilling moment was when a beautiful black butterfly landed on my wrist and started licking me to get the salts in my sweat. It tickled and I giggled. Then I sobered and got a bit teary: this lovely creature trusted me enough to make contact so that it could obtain something it needed to survive.

Read any scientific paper and you are presented with cold, hard facts and stoic observations. Emotions do not belong in scientific journals. Conclusions are restricted to what the data can tell you. Scientists are trained to do this but it gives the public a distorted perception of what we are really like. I don’t know any field biologists that don’t love nature, and haven’t been deeply and profoundly moved by what they’ve seen. Jane Goodall learned something a long time ago: just as the animals being observed are changed by their experience, so is the observer. In observing nature, you grow to love it and are compelled to help save it because you see the truth of our reality: we are all connected, and in losing a species we lose a part of ourselves.

Recently the Manitoba Centennial Centre renovated Steinkopf Garden (the area between the Concert Hall and the Museum). I was part of the consultation process with the landscape architect company Hilderman Thomas Frank and Cram. I suggested including some native plant species in the garden since that way we could potentially use the area for programming. The architects were willing to do so, having used native species successfully in the past. One of the plants I suggested was a species of milkweed (Asclepias ovalifolia) since I thought it would help to attract Monarch butterflies (Danus plexippus). So one of the raised flower beds was planted with 44 Dwarf Milkweed plants last fall.

I went for a walk through the garden recently and was absolutely astounded. Not only were Monarch butterflies attracted to the plants, they outnumbered them! I counted 73 monarch caterpillars crawling around! Some were big and fat, and others still just little babies. And they were eating like mad. In fact they had eaten almost every single plant down to the veins. You’d think that being a botanist this would bother me but monarchs are just too cute to stay mad at!

My astonishment soon gave way to concern. The big, fat monarch caterpillars might be able to successfully enter the pupal stage and become butterflies but I was afraid that the little ones would starve. I decided to rescue a few of them and put them on the milkweeds that I grow in my backyard. Shortly after transplanting them they were happily (at least I assume they were happy but you never really know do you?) munching my milkweeds. I also contacted the other staff at the Museum to see if they could rescue a few as well.

The Museum staff came through with flying colours, relocating just about every single caterpillar to backyards, and community and public gardens. Apparently this abundance of Monarchs is happening all over North America with unusually large numbers of butterflies seen in Canada (Click for Winnipeg Free Press article). Growing milkweeds in your yard is a great way to help save these beautiful creatures from extinction. Plus you get to enjoy watching some of the loveliest insects in Manitoba!

As the Museum’s botanist it is important for me to know not just how to identify plants but also how people traditionally and contemporarily use wild and weedy plants. Although I am familiar with the edible fruit and nut plants of the prairies (and am quite enthusiastic about eating them!), I have been less inclined to try the edible wild greens. The main reason behind my reluctance had to do with the fact that I wasn’t quite sure when and how to harvest and prepare said greens.  When I heard that an acquaintance of mine, Laura Reeves, offered workshops on how to prepare and eat wild edible plants (amusingly called “you can eat that?”), I determined that it would be beneficial for me to get some first-hand instruction.

One of the plants with a wide variety of uses is cattail (Typha spp.). First Nations traditionally ate cattails, which are also an important food source for animals like muskrats and geese. Our morning began by removing and munching on a few cattail shoots, which were crunchy yet tender and reminiscent of cucumber. We then proceeded to carefully dug up a few roots which we later washed to remove the starch; the wet starch was used later to make cattail pancakes. Cattail pollen can also be used as “flour” and the green flower heads (which we couldn’t try because there weren’t any yet) can apparently be eaten like corn on the cob.

We went on to harvest the roots of burdock (Arctium lappa), sweet cicely (Osmorhiza claytoni), caraway (Carum carvi), and dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), the spring shoots of milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), the leaves of basswood (Tilia americana), stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), lamb’s quarter’s (Chenopodium album), maple-leaf goosefoot (Chenopodium simplex), and stinkweed (Thlaspi arvensis), and the flowers of caragana (Caragana arborescens). With our buckets full of wild plants we went on to wash, rub, scrape, chop, roast, boil, steam, and bake our plants into a delicious meal of:

Basket of washed dandelion roots ready for roasting.

For the last several months I have been helping to organize the 23rd North American Prairie Conference (NAPC) (click here for conference details) which will be held at the University of Manitoba from August 6-10. This is first time that this conference has been held in western Canada (it is usually held in the mid to western U.S.). I’m looking forward to learning more about prairie conservation and restoration initiatives from other Canadians  as well as our American neighbours. This conference will feature a number of prominent prairie enthusiasts including Canadian authors Sharon Butala and Candace Savage as well as Dr. Wes Jackson from the Land Institute in Kansas and Dr. David Young from the Natural Resources Institute in Winnipeg. Ojibway elder David Daniels will be talking about Canada’s native plants and their traditional use.

Conferences like this provide a great opportunity for professionals to meet and exchange information that will assist with their work. But it is also a chance for people who are just concerned about prairie conservation to learn more about these beautiful and intricate habitats that are now almost gone. Hope to see you there!