Stepping out from the Chalet yesterday, the Nature Journal Club headed toward Sisu Hill. The children carried butterfly nets in hand, ready to swoop up whatever insects crept, crawled, or flew their way. The prairie grass is in abundance this time of year, thus many insects were seen; grasshoppers big and small, monarch and clouded sulphur butterflies, and even a few caterpillars, mostly of the orange, black, and fuzzy variety.
Our intention was to continue to work our way down to Swedetown Creek, but a plethora of ripe, plump berries caught our eye. An ice cream bucket was set out, and with the help of little fingers, about a half-gallon worth of black raspberries were picked (no knowing how many additional berries were consumed). The Latin name for this sweet treat is Rubus occidentalis. The berries begin as a whitish color, then turn red, and eventually black when ripe; when picked, this berry has a hollow center. All that being said, there are roughly 80 species of Rubus in the Midwest, so while the Rubus occidentalis isn't supposed to be super common in the wilds of the Copper Country, we can be sure the berries we picked, gathered, and consumed were definitely of the Rubus genus.
