Field Guide

These large, beautiful butterflies are almost completely confined to high-quality native prairie habitats. Look for them visiting butterfly weed and pale purple coneflower.

Wild strawberries ripen in June and July. This is one of the parents of the cultivated strawberry, and it’s a delicious wild snack, for people and for wildlife.

The ornate box turtle is most common in parts of Missouri where grasslands once dominated. Nesting continues through mid-June.

Working all alone, these busy mamas snip leaf pieces from preferred plants, then pack them into hollow twigs to make nursery chambers.