Get Outside in June

Feed Me

Bladderworts, Missouri’s only carnivorous plants, are in bloom. They are branching, rootless, aquatic plants that tend to grow in thick, floating mats under the water. The leaves are threadlike and the flowers resemble tiny yellow snapdragons, held above the water. The baglike bladders that constitute the trap are only about the size of a pinhead, so the animals they trap are quite small and include tiny crustaceans, minute aquatic insects, mosquito larvae, and newly hatched tadpoles and fish fry.

Mushroom Madness

Mushroom season doesn’t begin and end with morels. Chanterelles are another choice edible popping up through August in the wilds of Missouri. There are three chanterelles to look for — smooth, golden, and cinnabar. 

• Smooth chanterelles are bright orange to yellow with wavy margins and smooth undersides.
• Golden chanterelles are bright orange to yellow with wavy margins and forked ridges.
• Cinnabar chanterelles are reddish-orange and vase-shaped with forked ridges.

Who’s Calling?

Gray catbirds sing from dense foliage in trees and shrubs. Their song, which can go on nonstop for minutes at a time, may be confusing. Their tunes are cobbled together from a variety of sounds that they mimic. You may hear the tunes of cardinals, robins, wrens, frogs, or chickens. They can even sound like a cat, giving them their common name.

Blooms for Butterflies

Common milkweed grows along roadsides, thickets, and other open areas. Its pink to lilac blooms are a favorite of monarch butterflies, whose caterpillars eat the foliage, storing the milkweed’s toxic sap. This is a defense mechanism, making the monarchs unpalatable to predators.

Butterfly weed, the state’s only orange-flowered milkweed, blooms in native prairies and other sunny habitats. It is a magnet for butterflies, including coral hairstreak butterflies, which is only around through July. The coral hairstreak ignores all other plants in favor of butterfly weed.

Learn to Hunt: Where and Why to Hunt

Saturday • June 28 • 9–11 a.m.

Online only

Registration required by June 27. To register call 888-283-0364 or visit short.mdc.mo.gov/49W.

All ages 

Hunting is not only a family tradition, but a personal privilege that everyone can enjoy. Hunting is basic to our nature. Hunting allows us to help control wildlife populations and fund projects for wildlife management. Hunting is also a safe and natural way to help each of us reconnect to nature and our surroundings. In this class, we will cover all the reasons to hunt, why it’s important, and explore myths about hunting.

Virtual Hunting Series: Tree Stand Safety

Thursday • July 3 • 5:30–6:30 p.m.

Online only

Registration required by July 3. To register call 888-283-0364 or visit short.mdc.mo.gov/49s.

All ages

Tree stand accidents are one of the major causes of hunting related injuries. Find out steps that you can take to ensure your safety while hunting from, and setting up, a tree stand. Several examples of different tree stands will be mentioned in this class. 

Horns for Hummingbirds

Look for hummingbirds hovering around the red-orange blooms of trumpet creeper. It’s common in roadside thickets and crawls up the sides of cliffs. Hummingbirds enjoy these trumpet-shaped flowers.

Reconnect with Nature

Adventure can happen anywhere. Download the free MO Outdoors app 
for great places to go and capture memories near you.

Natural Events to See This Month

Here’s what’s going on in the natural world.

• Blanchard’s cricket frogs breed.
• Channel catfish spawn.
• Furrow orbweavers build webs. 
• Young woodchucks make their own burrows.
• Fireflies flicker at dusk.