Karen Keninger, Author at Heartland Safari

A deep red, fat larva (Mouse Bot Fly) wriggles free from near the anus of a dead mouse, which has been the bot’s host until today. The larva is not ready to pupate and will die also. This bot is one of at least three that were inside the mouse’s body. A second bot can be seen exiting beneath the mouse’s hind foot.

A Little Horror Show: Mouse Bot Fly

Updated September 11, 2025

The other day Bryan was out in the shop patrolling for mice. He discovered that one of the traps he had set contained a white-footed mouse. As he watched, a deep red creature wriggled its way out of the mouse. The mouse’s abdominal wall was also pulsating as something tried to escape. It was the […]

A black morph Fox Squirrel sits up in the yard, clutching a nut.

Squirrels, Labs, Genetics

Updated September 25, 2025

We have a number of fox squirrels (Sciurus niger) on Owl Acres. Clancy loves to bark at them, and I suspect they like to tease him as they run across the yard and shoot up the trees where they sit and chatter incessantly. Our fox squirrels are reddish-brown in color. Except, what’s this? A black […]

Mammals

Late summer extravagance in the prairie garden. Stiff goldenrod stands tall, its dense cluster of tiny yellow flowers promises (and delivers) feast for all.

Late Summer Extravagance: Goldenrod

Updated September 11, 2025

As summer slides into fall, the array of flowers in our prairie garden and along the ditch shifts to yellows. One notable species is the stiff goldenrod (Oligoneuron rigidum). This late bloomer is native to North America and holds a versatile and important place in our landscape. First of all, because it blooms in late […]

A large black and yellow spider stands menacingly on the strands of her web attached to the red siding of the house. Yellow Garden Spider has been here for weeks, gathering resources to produce the next generation.

Master Weaver: Yellow Garden Spider

Updated August 31, 2025

An itsy bitsy spider climbed onto the hose faucet handle just under my study window. A small brown and gray creature, he had most likely spent his life savings on one fling with a nearby lady, and now had little or no energy left. He fell to the ground when Bryan touched the faucet handle. […]

Insects and Spiders

Not strawcolor, but green. Not flat, but triangular. Not grass, but Sedge. Strawcolor Flatsedge displays a tangle of long slender leaves and bristly flower/seed stalks in the margin of the yard next to the sidewalk.

Sedges Have Edges: Strawcolored Flatsedge

Updated August 31, 2025

We’ve had a very wet summer. More rain than we’ve seen in years has fallen periodically an inch or two at a time–including those weeks when we’ve been away on vacation. The result is that the yard has remained green and lush all summer, and places normally dry are a bit soggy. The peppers have […]

Plants

This is the creepiest image we could find. A close-up of the face of American Wood Cockroach. Brown and shiny, its antennae sprout from the triangular head and go out of the frame. The compound eyes occupy two corners of the triangle above the antennae attachment points. The mouth forms the bottom point.

Creepy Cleaners: American Wood Cockroach

Updated July 27, 2025

The thought of cockroaches gives me the willies. They were a fact of life in our apartment in Maryland, and I worked very hard not to bring them home with me. And we didn’t. But those little German horrors are only one species of cockroach, and some of them, it turns out, aren’t bad at […]

Insects and Spiders

Little grey-brown bird peeks out from a nest box. Northern House Wren displays a sharp beak and bright, clear eye.

Fierce Defender: Northern House Wren

Updated July 27, 2025

One of the best things about spring and summer is waking up to the morning chorus. Since I’ve been paying close attention, I’m even getting better at identifying its members. I still have a long way to go, but one loud and persistent singer has my attention this summer. It’s the northern house wren, (Troglodytes […]

Birds

Chrysalis of Cabbage White Butterfly. Green and knobby with black dots, the pupa tapers to a point at each end. It emerges the last time the caterpillar splits its skin.

Magic or Just Biology: Metamorphosis

Updated July 27, 2025

As I am discovering more about the insects on Owl Acres, I’ve learned that insects follow one of two basic lifecycles—either incomplete metamorphosis or complete metamorphosis. The approach that’s easiest to understand is incomplete metamorphosis. This scheme has the egg hatching into a nymph—a miniature version of a cicada or grasshopper. The nymphs grow and […]

Insects and Spiders

A Cabbage White Butterfly stands on the flower stalk of Blue Vervain in the prairie garden, its triangle-shaped wings held in rest posture like a sail above the animal’s body. The single spot on the forewing identifies this as a male.

Mustard Anyone?: Cabbage White Butterflies

Updated July 27, 2025

In our prairie garden, little white ballerinas dance their way from flower to flower. They’re only about an inch and a half from wing tip to wing tip, tiny compared to their monarch cousins. They dip and swerve in their aerial dance evading the birds and bigger insects that would have them for dinner. They […]

Insects and Spiders

White dusty coating of Powdery Mildew on the leaves of Wild Bergamot in the prairie garden. The purple flower head of the host plant is visible at top of frame.

Alien Marvel: Powdery Mildew

Updated July 27, 2025

When I was growing up in the sixties, my science teacher had us learn the classification system for plants and animals. That is, we learned that there were kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. And we learned that there were two kingdoms—plants and animals. A lot of science and classifying has gone on […]

Fungus