Pollinator Field Trip

July 5th, 2014

In late June, a visiting group from the Clark Fork chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society learned about MPG’s native bee monitoring efforts. Folks asked great questions about the ranch’s history and MPG’s many ongoing research projects.

Last Saturday a group from the Clark Fork chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society came to learn about MPG’s native bee monitoring efforts. Folks asked great questions about the ranch’s history and MPG’s many ongoing research projects.

Joshua Lisbon photo

Initial results from last year’s bee monitoring impressed everyone. The USDA-ARS Bee Biology and Systematics Lab in Logan, Utah, identified the 132 bee species we caught on the property in 2013 and created this synoptic display from that collection.

The cool, rainy weather made pollinator observations difficult, so we headed to Mount Baldy’s summit to see the wildflower displays instead. We were rewarded with showy assemblages of arrowleaf balsamroot, silvery lupine, Indian paintbush, prairie smoke and biscuitroot. A typical late spring grouping for our local montane grasslands, these flowers never fail to delight!

Joshua Lisbon photo

Although we didn’t see any bees, we did find Rocky Mountain Parnassian butterflies (Parnassius smintheus) waiting out the weather in clumps of lupine. They became the easy and lovely subjects of participants’ photographs.