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Photo of the Week – August 4, 2016
This Wednesday, I arrived at Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center southwest of Lincoln, Nebraska just as a heavy morning fog was beginning to dissipate. I had about 10 minutes before a meeting, so I...
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Photo of the Week – August 11, 2016
I made a quick trip up to the Niobrara Valley Preserve this week. As always, there was a treasure trove of unexpected finds. Here are some of them. Bison calves are growing fast. Their coats have...
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Sand Wasps
I was introduced to sand wasps (Bembix sp) by Mike Arduser when he came to visit the Platte River Prairies back in 2012. As we stood together in a sand prairie, a bee-like creature was zipping around...
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Photo of the Week – August 18, 2016
There is an unmistakable look to late summer prairies, and that look is YELLOW. Sunflowers, goldenrods, and Silphiums (compass plant, cup plant, rosinweed) are all front and center this time of year....
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That Predator Just Killed My Predator!
I spent last week in the Nebraska Sandhills, possibly the greatest grassland in the world. Last week’s trip was one of several I’ve gotten to make around that landscape this summer. It’s been great...
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Photo of the Week – September 1, 2016
Two weeks ago, I posted about Yellow Season in prairies. That annual phenomenon continues, and at our family prairie this week, stiff goldenrod was front and center. Pollinators and pollen-eating...
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The Enigmatic Stick Insect
I’m pretty good at spotting insects. When I walk around prairies with a camera, I’m usually looking down, scanning for small creatures. Just as I imagine a building inspector develops search images...
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Photo of the Week – October 20, 2016
Rosinweed (Silphium integrifolium) seeds hang tenuously to the flower head. Lincoln Creek Prairie (Prairie Plains Resource Institute) in Aurora, Nebraska. I stole an hour of photography time this week...
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Photo of the Week – December 1, 2016
Insect identification is unfair. I came across this photo yesterday while looking through some images from last summer. The photo caught my eye and I thought maybe I’d write a short natural history...
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Photo of the Week – December 15, 2016
From time to time, I like to use this blog to provide important public service information. Today, I am attempting to fill an important gap in the bank of available prairie ecology images. I looked...
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Photo of the Week – December 22, 2016
As I was putting together my slideshow of favorite photos of 2016, there were two photos I considered including but didn’t, mainly because they were in a vertical (portrait) format. The two photos...
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Hubbard Fellowship Blog – Mysterious Strands of Silk
This post is written and illustrated by Katharine Hogan, one of our Hubbard Fellows. In November, I visited the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge on Highway 83 south of the town of Valentine. There...
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The Life of a Single Mom (Bee)
Most of what we read in the news about declines in bee populations focus on (non-native) honey bees. Yes, those populations are suffering declines from the combined impacts diseases, habitat loss,...
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Should We Manage for Rare Species or Species Diversity?
Land managers constantly make difficult decisions without really knowing the long-term consequences of their choices. Balancing the sometimes conflicting needs of rare plants like Canada milkvetch...
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Photo of the Week – April 6, 2017
Wildflower season has officially returned to our area. I was out at my family’s prairie last weekend and found pussytoes (Antennaria neglecta), buffalo pea (Astragalus crassicarpus), and sun sedge...
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Photo of the Week – April 13, 2017
Prairie dandelion, aka prairie false dandelion (Nothocalais cuspidata) is different from common dandelion (Taraxacum officianale), the one most people are familiar with in yards and weedy places....
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Not Yet, Monarchs, Not Yet!
Monarch butterflies are leaving Mexico and traveling north, as they always do. However, they’re coming a lot further north than they typically do in April. The first I heard about this was a text...
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Photo of the Week – April 28, 2017
Ten days ago, I wrote about monarch butterflies returning from Mexico and flying much further north than is typical, and some of the risks they face because of that. Many of you responded with your...
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Frosty Monarchs
Adding insult to injury, the overly-ambitious monarchs in Nebraska this spring had to deal with cold wet weather all last weekend. Temperatures got down to about 30 degrees F, and maybe lower in some...
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Photo of the Week – May 5, 2017
During the last week, I’ve been lucky enough to find and photograph two different wolf spiders, so I figured I should probably dedicate a short blog post to them. The first wolf spider I found was a...
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