Karen Keninger, Author at Heartland Safari

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

You might think this an ordinary weed, climbing over the sidewalk, but it’s not. It’s knotweed.

Prostrate Knotweed

Updated July 20, 2025

Last fall we had some cement work done on the sidewalk leading to the deck. The ground had settled significantly in the 20 years since the house was built, and the cement sidewalk settled with it. This project was to correct that. In the process of completing the work, the ground next to the sidewalk […]

Plants

Plate-size umbels of tiny white flowers stand atop canes of Elderberry growing next to an Iowa cornfield. More flowerheads have yet to erupt.

Community Living: Elderberry

Updated July 11, 2025

On a bright, cool morning in early July, the landscape is a vibrant, nearly uniform green. We’ve had lots of rain this year, and everything is lush and growing. Against this backdrop of vibrant green, plate-sized clusters of tiny white flowers buzz with happy pollinators. The flowers are arranged in flat-topped umbrella-shaped clusters ten to […]

A female cardinal rests in Karen’s hand, victim of a lethal encounter with a window.

Lethal Hazard: Window Glass

Updated June 29, 2025

Have you ever watched a bird crash into your window? It’s heartbreaking to see it happen. There’s that thunk against the glass, and then the bird falls to the ground. Maybe it gets up again and flies away, and maybe it doesn’t. 60% of the birds that survive the collision die from it sooner or […]

Birds

A little grey songbird perches atop a bare twig. Eastern Wood Pewee waits to sally forth on its next mission to snag dinner-on-the-wing.

Flycatcher: Eastern Wood Pewee

Updated June 29, 2025

On May 14, 2025, a little olive-gray bird with a big voice joined the chorus on Owl Acres. It’s a voice that’s relatively easy to identify. It features a clear, bright, sliding whistle. It slides down and then up sounding like “pee’a’wee.” He’ll sing to us all summer while he guards his territory, and courts […]

Birds

Iowa’s State Flower is a ditchweed. Flat, open pink flower with five petals and yellow center, it blooms on a stout shrub by a dusty roadside. Wild Prairie Rose is a hardy native, adapted to its sometimes-harsh habitat. Even though the virgin prairie is long gone, the area near the gravel road mimics the wild rose’s preferred conditions, and the plant flourishes here.

State Flower: Wild Prairie Rose

Updated June 9, 2025

On a beautiful spring day in late May, we took Dave and Clancy out for a nice long walk. Along the gravel road, we noticed a variety of little flowers adorning the ditch at the edge of the road in front of Owl Acres. One that caught our attention was the wild prairie rose (Rosa […]

Plants