The Wild Flower Walk

I seem to be on a pattern talking about flowers lately. Links are below to my recent posts

The other day I went on a wild flower walk organized by Quail Forever. Quail Forever’s mission is stated as: Quail Forever’s mission is to conserve quail, pheasants, and other wildlife through habitat improvements, public access, education, and conservation advocacy. Quail Forever biologist staff as well as an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) Private Lands biologist was there to guide us on the management of the site and the flowers we were seeing. What I learned the most during this outing was the benefit of fire and native planting such as this. This property had several fields planted a couple years ago and the planting have been managed by controlled burns since planting (nothing mechanical such as mowing or disking). Each site was a bit different even though each one was planted with the same ~60 species of wild flowers and grasses. In each you would find flowers that were not in the seed blend that were more native of the area and were growing. Of course I went with the goal of taking pictures but came away with so much more.

This was my favorite plant of the trip. It is called Rattlesnake Master.

My favorite moment of the trip was this one. I looked down while we were walking in the wild flowers and spotted this small tree frog hanging out on a plant. (It’s not the greatest picture as the wind was blowing and I snapped this photograph with my cell phone) That right there is the benefit of this. Yes, the flowers are beautiful and yes they are beneficial to many pollinators but there is so many more benefits in a planting such as this! Thanks to all who work on projects such as this one.

Thanks to Quail Forever, AGFC and the Cater family for giving us this tour!

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-Michael Gilbert