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- Photo of the Week – June 14, 2013
- Difficult Decisions – Growing Season Fires and Other Prairie Management Choices
- Photo of the Week – June 7, 2013
- Ragwort – Prettier (and More Valuable) than its Name Might Suggest
- Photo of the Week – May 31, 2013
- Wildfire Recovery at The Niobrara Valley Preserve – Spring Green Up
- Photo of the Week – May 23, 2013
- Blowing Against the Wind?
- Photo of the Week – May 16, 2013
- Join Us For The Platte River Prairies Field Day: July 12, 2013
- Keeping a Low Profile in the Spring
- Photo of the Week – May 9, 2013
- A Prickly Confrontation
- Photo of the Week – May 2, 2013
- Capturing Post-Wildfire Recovery Through Timelapse Photography
- A Dandy Little Predator
- A Prairie Ecologist’s Perspective on Arbor Day
- Photo of the Week – April 25, 2013
- Tuning Into Fire Frequency
- Photo of the Week – April 18, 2013
Category Archives: Prairie Animals
Photo of the Week – June 14, 2013
This was an interesting week for observations. Here are some of the things I saw and learned. . . . . . .
Difficult Decisions – Growing Season Fires and Other Prairie Management Choices
Would you purposefully destroy the nest of a wild turkey or grasshopper sparrow? Of course not. But what if that destruction was a consequence of a land management action that benefits the larger prairie community? That was the situation we were faced with last week as we mulled … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Animals, Prairie Insects, Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography, Prairie Plants
Tagged burning, consequences, controlled burn, fire, fire season, growing season, impacts, late spring burn, management decisions, negative impacts, objectives, prescribed fire, season, spring, summer fire, trade offs
20 Comments
Blowing Against the Wind?
As I mentioned last week, I recently spent a couple days helping our land manager, Nelson Winkel, pull garlic mustard at our Rulo Bluffs Preserve in southeast Nebraska. The invasive species has just started to invade our property within the last several years. We’ve heard … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Animals, Prairie Insects, Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography, Prairie Plants
Tagged biocontrol, burning, control, controlled burning, garlic mustard, herbicide, invasive species, oak hickory woodland, oak woodland, prescribed fire, rulo bluffs preserve, weed, weed control, woods
19 Comments
Join Us For The Platte River Prairies Field Day: July 12, 2013
Come spend a day on the Platte River Prairies! Our annual open house/field day, just south of Wood River, Nebraska, will provide opportunities to hike the prairies with a variety of grassland experts. – Learn about prairie reptiles and amphibians … Continue reading
Photo of the Week – May 9, 2013
I ran across this beautiful garter snake in our Platte River Prairies yesterday. Interestingly, it was almost exactly a year ago that I photographed a mating ball of red-sided garter snakes just a 1/2 mile from where I found this … Continue reading
A Prickly Confrontation
While we were setting up timelapse cameras at the Niobrara Valley Preserve a couple weeks ago, I had an encounter with a creature I’d never seen up close before. It was evening, and Jeff Dale was driving us down toward … Continue reading
Capturing Post-Wildfire Recovery Through Timelapse Photography
Last week, I posted that I’d been up at our Niobrara Valley Preserve, helping to set up timelapse cameras to document the recovery of that site from the wildfire last July. Back in February, photographer Michael Forsberg, Jeff Dale, Rich Walters, … Continue reading
A Dandy Little Predator
I took my boys to our family’s prairie today. I was only intending to stay for a little while, but they were having so much fun building forts in the trees and drawing pictures in the mud, we stayed for several … Continue reading
Tuning Into Fire Frequency
HOW OFTEN SHOULD PRAIRIES BE BURNED? It’s a question prairie ecologists and managers have been wrestling with for many years. Unfortunately, research on the impacts of fire management is somewhat limited and often contradictory. Much of the best research has … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Animals, Prairie Insects, Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Plants
Tagged bowles and jones 2013, burning, controlled burn, eastern tallgrass prairie, fire frequency, frequency, grassland, how often prairie fire, how often should prairies burn, konza prairie, marlin bowles, prairie, prairie management, prescribed fire, repeated burning, research, tallgrass prairie
13 Comments
Photo of the Week – April 5, 2013
A few shorebirds are starting to show up along the Platte River. The first to come each spring are usually the ubiquitous and noisy killdeer, followed by the taller and more reserved yellowlegs. As the season progresses, we’ll see a great … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Animals, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography
Tagged feeding, flexible bill, image, migration, nature photography, photo, platte river, sandpiper, shorebird, tracks, wading bird
9 Comments
