Date: 4/21/25 9:45 am From: Joseph Neal <0000078cbd583d7c-dmarc-request...> Subject: Among known and unknown
Gray Catbirds officially returned to my yard April 18, coinciding with annual last White-throated Sparrow departure choruses. Coinciding, too, with storms flooding my backyard and tornadoes swirling Texas- Oklahoma. All this wild atmospheric upheaval pushing migrating Yellow-headed Blackbirds and Franklin’s Gulls through Northwest Arkansas City.
Significant storms predicted for yesterday, Easter Sunday, did not dampen our enthusiasm for travel to Tallgrass Prairies near Charleston in Franklin County. Our = two botany-oriented and bird-interested explorers in front seat, me in back. Taking off on such a day reminded me more than a little of Admiral Farragut’s orders during the Civil War battle for Mobile Bay: “Damn the torpedoes … full speed ahead.”
Up, up and away Junior Birdman! Off into a stormy day with Eastern Meadowlarks confined to flying across tops of last year’s grasses. And how do Turkey Vultures aerodynamically manage such winds?
Picture this: highway between Lavaca and Cherokee Prairie with acres of tiny white flowers. Many hayfields almost all white, as in “snow on the prairie” -- striking image coined by a front seat botanist. Snow as in a tiny white wildflower with star-shaped arrangement of petals – often called Stitchwort.
And after Lark Sparrows and White-eyed Vireos – and no Bell’s Vireos – and after two Northern Bobwhites fly low across Presson-Oglesby Preserve where brilliant Yellow Wild Indigo and Indian Paintbrush are in bloom -- and a low flying Red-tailed Hawk at first looks like a Northern Harrier – after all that –
On our way back – and lured by a Baltimore Oriole that may have flown into one of the big oaks -- we stop at Measles Cemetery in Lavaca. Bright yellow flowers -- native Golden Ragworts (Packera) --mark an unmowed part of the cemetery.
I pile down on a bench near the grave of one of the original Measels. A large granite stone with dates. Nearby, and in a neat row -- small stones inscribed “Known only to God”. My assumption these are baby markers???
But in a while I remember as a kid my Great Grandfather Franklin’s burial in Casa, Arkansas. Many markers were simple field stones. In some old cemeteries, field stone markers with no inscription with name and dates have been removed in order to make it easier to mow. And sometimes field stone markers with no families left in the area to care for graves are not replaced, or replaced with more easy to care for “Known only” markers. Known only to God.
Turns out, it isn’t only identity of those deceased in past years now known only to god. Front seat botanists have been busy. Samantha finds Winter Grapefern, Holubiella lunaroides. Before her discovery, not known to occur in Sebastian County.
She is taking notes in a field book. In the annals of Arkansas botany, hitherto Unknown H. lunaroides joins U of A-Fayetteville Herbarium’s permanent botanical record.
There’s more I’d like to share. But Spring migration duty calls. In the yard: Yellow Warbler, Warbling Vireo, Swainson’s Thrush.
