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Photo of the Week – February 20, 2014
This the time of year when I start getting antsy to see green vegetation, flowers, and insects again. Since our prairies are still brown and dormant, I have to live through photographs from previous...
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Random Caterpillar Photo
For no particular reason, here is a picture of a caterpillar: This photo was taken just after sunset at Griffith Prairie – owned and managed by Prairie Plains Resource Institute. North of Aurora,...
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Patches of Fire and Habitat
It’s been a difficult year for conducting prescribed fires so far – the wind seems to be blowing even harder and more consistently than in recent memory. And that’s saying something, living in the...
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Platte River Prairies Field Day – June 13, 2014
I hope to see many of you at our first Field Day of the 2014 season. On Friday, June 13, we’ll host hikes and presentations all day long at our Platte River Prairies. Come learn about prairie...
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Wild Rose Galls
We came across these galls on a wild rose plant last week, and Eliza insisted I do a blog post about them. So here you go. Insect galls on prairie wild rose – TNC’s Platte River Prairies, Nebraska....
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Photo of the Week – May 30, 2014
I made another trip up to Griffith Prairie last week. It looked pretty much as it had the week before – still lots of ragwort blooming – but the photographs I returned with were very different. This...
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Niobrara Valley Preserve Field Trip
Last weekend, I helped with an event up at our Niobrara Valley Preserve. Neighbors and members of The Nature Conservancy were invited to visit the Preserve, enjoy some home-grown bison burgers, and...
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Seventeen-Year Cicadas are Back! (in Iowa, at Least)
I traveled to Iowa this week (more on that next week) and just happened to arrive during the emergence of one of the world’s most intriguing insects – the periodical cicada (Magicicada sp). Made up of...
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Photo of the Week – June 12, 2014
While I was in Iowa last week, I took advantage of some free time just before sunset to return to one of the restored (reconstructed) prairies we’d visited earlier in the day at the Kellerton Wildlife...
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“Should I Stay or Should I Go?”
It’s good to be back in the prairies after spending last week in the mountains. The mountains were beautiful and daytime temperatures were pleasantly cool, but I sure enjoyed the chance to catch up...
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Oddballs or Innovators?
I spotted an upland sandpiper on top of a power pole last week. In central Nebraska, that’s not really noteworthy – upland sandpipers are pretty common across much of the state. They tend to nest in...
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Photo of the Week – July 10, 2014
When I was at the Niobrara Valley Preserve in late June, I did some macro photography, in addition to the sunset photo I showed last week. Here are four photos from that trip. Purple coneflower...
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Longhorns on the Prairie
One of the great things about prairies – and nature in general – is that there is way more to discover than I’ll ever have time for. Especially within the world of invertebrates, there is no shortage...
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Emergence of Life in a Wetland
After many years of wanting to, we finally installed some solar-powered pumps and livestock water tanks in our family prairie. (Thanks to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Nebraska Game and Parks...
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Photo of the Week – August 8, 2014
I usually shoot more than one composition of a scene or creature. It’s fun to experiment, and hard to know what I’ll like best when I am reviewing images on my computer later. Of course, having...
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Photo of the Week – August 15, 2014
Wasps are closely related to bees and ants, and some can be difficult to distinguish from their cousins. In this case, the long body makes me pretty sure this is a wasp (though body length is not...
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Photo of the Week – August 21, 2014
I’ve written before about how many times I often snap the shutter on my camera to make sure I get the photo I want. Digital photography makes that a cheap insurance option and gives me lots of images...
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Field Day Reminder – TOMORROW, Rain or Shine! Also, A Bee Photo
A reminder – we will have our Platte River Prairies Field Day tomorrow, August 27, from 9am to 3:30. Details can be found here. Rain is in the forecast for tomorrow, but it looks like the best chances...
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Photo of the Week – September 4, 2014
It’s not often the wind is calm enough to get a good sharp photo of a spider in its web, but everything came together nicely late last week as I walked around one of our restored wetlands. There were...
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Photo of the Week – September 12, 2014
It’s grasshopper season! Vehicles driving through the prairie on a late summer morning are quickly covered with dew, grass pollen, and GRASSHOPPERS. By the end of summer, most grasshoppers have...
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