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Photo of the Week – September 29, 2017
As the growing season comes to an end and most wildflowers wind up their blooming period, insects that feed on nectar and pollen have to work a lot harder to find food. The few remaining plants with...
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Back Door Thieves
I took a quick walk through one of our restored wetlands last week. Most plants had finished blooming for the year, but in some recently-mowed patches, there were some scattered flowers of beggarticks...
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EEEEEEK!!
For many of you, the snake photo below will elicit a strong visceral response. The spider photo below might do the same. While it varies in intensity, humans seem to have an innate fear of both...
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Prairies as Placeholders
Ecologically speaking, grasslands might be considered a “transitional community”. In the absence of fire and/or drought, grasslands tend to progress toward a shrubby, and eventually woody ecological...
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Little Blue Butterflies
The “tails” on the backside of the wings set the eastern tailed-blue apart from other relatives in our area Though it’s one of the more common butterflies in this part of Nebraska, the eastern...
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Photo of the Week – November 16, 2017
Most of us don’t think about ants very often unless they’re marching across our kitchen counter (or up our leg). That anonymity isn’t their fault, it’s ours. Ants play major roles in ecoystems, and...
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Photo of the Week – December 1, 2017
Back in July, my daughter tagged along with me on a trip to the Niobrara Valley Preserve. Because she’s in college now, and I don’t see her all that often, it was particularly gratifying to have a few...
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My Wife Finds A Basement Visitor
One of the best parts of a happy marriage is being periodically reminded that you’ve found just the right partner. My latest example of that came this weekend, when my wife came up from our basement...
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The Diversity, Beauty, and Secret Lives of Grasshoppers
I know I say this about a lot of different insects, but grasshoppers are truly amazing creatures. Grasshoppers have a reputation as voracious consumers of crops and forage grasses, and that reputation...
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Diversity, Redundancy, and Resilience
Grasslands face a long list of challenges. In many regions, habitat loss and fragmentation top that list, leaving prairies to struggle for survival as tiny isolated patches of habitat. In addition,...
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Photo of the Week – February 8, 2018
Some aquatic insects can survive being encased in ice – water boatmen, for example, or dragonfly larvae. But what happens if they are frozen near the surface of a pond and the ice around them melts...
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Photo of the Week – February 23, 2018
Before I start this post, here is an important disclaimer. I am not someone you should take advice from regarding aphids. I don’t know much about the life cycle of aphids, I don’t know much about...
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Photo of the Week – March 16, 2018
Ok, here’s a little nature puzzler for you. In today’s post, I’m including three photos from 2017 that have something in common. Are you sharp enough to figure it out or will you need someone to...
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Boxelder Bugs: Accessible Ambassadors for Nature
Conservation success relies upon people feeling connected to nature. As a result, conservation groups spend a lot of time trying to show the public how much their health and prosperity depend upon...
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Photo of the Week – April 6, 2018
Predators play key roles in ecosystems. When they are absent or rare, impacts ripple through landscapes, often in unexpected ways. We all rely on the presence and effectiveness of predators, but...
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Photo of the Week – April 20, 2018
The prairie is finally waking up (again) around here. Before last weekend’s blizzard weather, plants were starting to green up, but all that stopped for a while last weekend so we could enjoy one last...
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Re-emerging into the Warm Sunshine
On Monday, I took advantage of very pleasant weather to visit one of our Platte River Prairies I hadn’t seen for a while. The warm sunny day felt great to me, but apparently also invigorated a lot of...
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Photo of the Week – April 27, 2018
I feel like I need to apologize to long-time readers of this blog. This is the seventh spring season I’ve photographed and shared via this blog, and each of those spring seasons starts with...
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Toxic Bee-Killing Hitchhiker Beetles (I Know, Right?)
I’ve said many times that I’m no entomologist. I am an invertebrate enthusiast. I enjoy photographing small things, which means I end up with a lot of images of tiny invertebrates. Once I have...
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Photo of the Week – May 25, 2018
One of the big advantages of a prairie garden is that when good photography lighting conditions appear, it only takes me a few steps to find possible photo subjects. Since I’m hobbling around on...
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