Wetlands by Keith Hammer
Swan Rangers witnessed the changing and drying of the summer season during their outings this past week!
Click here or scroll down for the Rangers' photos and details!
In our lead photo, Keith Hammer reminds us of the importance of wetlands as a source of wildlife habitat and greenery during the hot summer.
Ruth Quist captures the maturing of plants in this photo of Salsify going to seed!
Dee Blank shows that some plants, like this Yellow wild buckwheat, thrive on steep slopes with dry, shallow soils!
Dee's photo of the Elmo fire, taken from the Swan Range, shows how days of heat and high winds turn a grass fire into a 20,000 acre grass-and-forest fire!
Janet Blackler came upon a One-eyed sphinx moth and . . .
. . . Keith Hammer came upon a Columiban emerald moth!
Keith also came across a handsome Cedar waxwing . . .
. . . some Pipsissewa and . . .
. . . some Pinedrops so deep in the mid-day dark forest that he had to use flash to get a decent photo!
Pam Willison came across an Elderberry bush loaded with berries yet to ripen to deep purple!
Norma Linsky sent in this photo of her "favorite marmot!"
In our parting shot, Skip Via reminds us why so many of us like to hike and revisit the same places often enough to get to know critters like marmots personally!
If you have interesting photos of your outings, send them along with a description to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and we'll try to work them into these weekly reports!