Pollinator & Grasslands Week celebrates the link between upland habitat, pheasants, and magical creatures that flutter, buzz and bring us joy

By Tom Carpenter

At Pheasants Forever, at our core, we do what we do for our namesake bird.

The upland habitat that results — whether a tallgrass prairie stretching across a section or to the horizon, or a meadow tucked into the back 40, or even a patch of wildflowers in your yard — likewise offers life to uncountable other creatures that also need grass and wildflowers to grace our Earth.

Creatures great — the sweeping art of a rooster bursting into the blue sky of a glorious October afternoon. And creatures small – the brush stroke of a monarch or swallowtail fluttering between blooms, a bumblebee buzzing from flower to flower, a hummingbird hovering.

What begets pheasants begets butterflies, bees and a host of other pollinators. The same stiff-stemmed grasses and wildflower stalks that hold blooms above, are the places where hen pheasants nest, hatch eggs and raise their chicks in the understory below.

Truth be told, it all blooms with flowers.

Yes, classic prairie grasses like big bluestem produces flowers … and pollinators use the tiny blooms.

Purple and yellow coneflower, rudbeckia, Monarda, blazing star, ironweed, prairie clover, leadplant, aster, goldenrod and countless other native forbs produce a much showier show above … and pheasants need the stiff stems that hold these blooms up for making new pheasants in summer, eluding predators year-round, surviving winter’s first snows, and having somewhere to live come springtime.

These are the reasons Pollinator & Grasslands Week is so important at Pheasants Forever. And the reasons it should be so important to you.

• Embrace the flow of content, information and knowledge we are going to share this week.
• Commit the plight of grasslands, wild places, pheasants … and pollinators … to your heart.
• Continue supporting the upland habitat mission with your dollars, volunteerism and voice.

We do what we do for creatures great that cause our heart to skip beats and go pitterpat in hunting season …. and creatures small that make that same heart sing with joy a summer day.

Donate today!

Tom Carpenter is Editor at Pheasants Forever