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Protecting, Restoring, and Sharing Nature in the Bluegrass
Protecting, Restoring, and Sharing Nature in the Bluegrass
Protecting, Restoring, and Sharing Nature in the Bluegrass
Protecting, Restoring, and Sharing Nature in the Bluegrass
Protecting, Restoring, and Sharing Nature in the Bluegrass
Protecting, Restoring, and Sharing Nature in the Bluegrass

Floracliff Nature Sanctuary is a 346-acre nonprofit nature preserve located in the Kentucky River Palisades region. Our mission is to care for the sanctuary property, ensure its protection as a nature preserve and promote public education of the natural history of the Inner Bluegrass region.

Floracliff is only open for guided hikes and events. We offer a variety of programs, volunteer and research opportunities, and hands-on workshops to interested individuals and groups. Please see our Events page for more details.

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Guided hikes available via scheduled programs or private tours by appointment; Please send messages to info@floracliff.org

Floracliff’s forest floor has been putting on qu

Floracliff’s forest floor has been putting on quite a display for this past week’s guided hikes. Pictured here:

1) Twinleaf and mayapple foliage
2) Wood poppies and bishop’s cap
3) a view of the diversity
4) Wood poppy and bent trillium
5) view of the Clara Wieland Wildflower Trail
6) large-flowered bellwort with wild blue phlox, Jacob’s ladder and false rue anemone
7) Sessile trillium
8) Jacob’s ladder and false rue anemone

Today’s wildflower hike featured at least three

Today’s wildflower hike featured at least three different colors of nodding trillium, also known as bent trillium (Trillium flexipes)

Take the City Nature Challenge! Floracliff is exci

Take the City Nature Challenge! Floracliff is excited to bring this community science event to Lexington. We'll be joining hundreds of cities around the world for this global collaboration and friendly competition to document urban biodiversity from April 30th to May 3rd. Anyone can participate by using iNaturalist to share observations of wild nature throughout Fayette County.

More information, including resources for educators: floracliff.org

#citynaturechallenge

This week, we are participating in the Wildflower

This week, we are participating in the Wildflower Week BotanyBlitz hosted and organized by the @kynativeplantsociety. Many wildflowers are in peak bloom at Floracliff and other Kentucky River Palisade natural areas.

Pictured here: wild ginger, bishop’s cap, wild blue phlox, sessile trillium, dwarf larkspur, shooting star, squirrel corn, Dutchman’s breeches, Jacob’s ladder, Ohio buckeye.

To participate in the Wildflower Week BotanyBlitz:
1) Create an account on @inaturalistorg, if you do not have one
2) Join the “KNPS Wildflower Week 2021 BotanyBlitz” project
3) Take photos of wildflowers anywhere in Kentucky
4) Share your observations on iNaturalist, where you can confirm and learn more about plant identification as well as contribute important biodiversity data.

We hope you’ll join us in documenting and sharing wildflower observations this week!

On warm, sunny days over the past couple of weeks,

On warm, sunny days over the past couple of weeks, we have been seeing a variety of early emerging butterflies. Our first butterflies of the year overwinter as either adults in the leaf litter (Eastern comma, Question Mark, mourning cloak) or as pupae (swallowtails, blues, and some hairstreaks). We’ve been finding many of them nectaring on spring flowers or feeding on tree sap oozing from woodpecker holes. Pictured here:

1) White M hairstreak on spicebush
2) Eastern tiger swallowtail
3) Question mark
4) Eastern comma
5) Celastrina (azure) butterfly. This one is either a summer azure, which has an early brood this time of year (despite its name), or the spring azure. The summer azures are actually the first azures to emerge, followed soon by the spring azures. The spring azures time their emergence with the bud burst of their only hostplant, flowering dogwood flowers. Identification from just the underside of an azure butterfly this time of year can prove to be quite difficult.

Photos 1,3,5: Beverly James: Photo 2: Josie Miller; Photo 4: David Lang

Our spring wildflowers are important sources of po

Our spring wildflowers are important sources of pollen and nectar for early emerging bees, such as mining bees (Andrena), small carpenter bees (Ceratina), and small sweat bees (Lasioglossum). Some of our native mining bees are specialists that only feed pollen from specific spring wildflowers to their young. Here are a few of the bees we have been seeing over the past week.

1) Carlin’s mining bee on cut-leaf toothwort
2) Nomad bee (Nomada) on spring beauty
3) Spring beauty miner, a specialist, on spring beauty
4) Metallic sweat bee (Lasioglossum) on twinleaf. The twinleaf offers no nectar, only pollen
5) Small carpenter bee (Ceratina) on sharp-lobed hepatica. The hepatica is also nectarless, but offers pollen.
6) Western honey bee, not a native bee, on purple cress

Photo 1: Ward Ransdell; Photos 2 - 5: Beverly James; Photo 6: David Lang

The first wave of our spring wildflowers is starti

There are a few spots remaining in tomorrow aftern

Spring wildflower season is just around the corner

Thanks to our partners at the Office of @kentucky_

Thanks to our partners at the Office of @kentucky_nature_preserves , prescribed burns were conducted in a couple of grassland areas today. These habitats are managed to promote a diversity of native plants, providing habitat for birds, pollinators, and other wildlife. Fire is an important tool for managing these areas, but it requires additional resources and people. We are so grateful to our partners for making this happen.

We have been seeing many signs of spring throughou

We have been seeing many signs of spring throughout the sanctuary over the past week:

1) Scarlet elf cup
2) Northern red salamander and southern two-lined salamander
3) Harbinger-of-spring
4) Green frog
5) Pickerel frog
6) Early saxifrage buds
7) Purple cress buds

The annual Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up

The annual Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up this weekend (February 12th – 15th). This community science project helps scientists understand more about our bird populations before the spring migration. Anyone can participate by observing birds in their backyard or neighborhood for at least 15 minutes and sharing those observations on eBird. Here are some species recently observed at Floracliff that you might be seeing:

1) Eastern bluebird
2) Yellow-bellied sapsucker
3) American goldfinch feeding on bee balm seeds
4) White-breasted nuthatch
5) Downy woodpecker
6) Winter wren
7) Eastern towhee
8) Red-bellied woodpecker
9) Tufted titmouse
10) Dark-eye junco

Photos by: David Lang (1, 4, 7, 8, 9); Beth Oleson (2, 3, 6, 10); Ward Ransdell (5)

More information about the GBBC can be found here: https://www.birdcount.org/

The Arboretum, Central Kentucky Audubon Society, R

Winter scenes from the sanctuary: 1-2) Icicles ha

Winter scenes from the sanctuary:

1-2) Icicles hanging from the limestone outcrops along Elk Lick Creek (Photo 1: David Lang, Volunteer Naturalist; Photo 2: Beverly James, Preserve Director)

3) Frost flower. These ice ribbons form when air temperatures are below freezing. The sap of plants like white wingstem expands under the freezing conditions, causing the stem of the plant to split. The water is then pushed out of the cracks and freezes upon contact with the air. Photo by David Lang

4) Lacewing larva - The lacewing larva is not easily seen in this photo because it has covered itself in bits of lichen, providing a useful disguise to fool its prey. If you look closely at lichens on tree bark and see a small clump of it wiggling or moving around, there is a good chance it’s a lacewing larva. Photo by Beverly James

We are thrilled to host Dr. Neil Pederson for our

Over the past two years, Floracliff volunteers and

Over the past two years, Floracliff volunteers and staff have been collecting and documenting land snail shells for the Kentucky Statewide Land Snail Survey Project, which is sponsored by the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves and led by Dan and Judy Dourson. When we started collections in 2019, Floracliff’s land snail list totaled 51 species thanks to a research project by Daniel Douglas in 2009 and 2010. Today, that number is at 73 species because of recent efforts led by volunteers Betsy and David Lang. Land snails are an important food and calcium source for many animals, including birds and salamanders. They can also serve as indicators of environmental change and ecosystem health. This photo shows the size range of Floracliff’s land snail diversity, with our largest land snail, Allogona profounda (broad-banded forestsnail), on the left, and our smallest land snail, Punctum smithi (lamellate spot), on the right. Photo by David Lang

On Monday, November 16th at 7 PM, we will be hosti

Thanks to our partnership with @bluegrassgreensour

Thanks to our partnership with @bluegrassgreensource we were able to provide live virtual programming from Elk Lick Creek for Fayette County students last week. High school students and 4th graders were given demonstrations on how to test the water quality of streams through chemical analysis and shown the diversity of benthic macroinvertebrates that serve as bioindicators for water quality. 📷: Dan Patrick, Floracliff Volunteer

Over the summer, both of the spearpoints pictured

From the creek camera: a raccoon’s midnight dip

From the creek camera: a raccoon’s midnight dip

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