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Recent Posts
- 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
- The Annual Grassland Restoration Network Workshop – Coming to A Prairie Near You (If You’re Near Columbia, Missouri)
- A Weekend Walk in the Woods
- Photo of the Week – April 11, 2013
- An Ill Wind…
- Is Poison Hemlock Repelled By Plant Diversity? Early Results Say Yes
- Photo of the Week – April 5, 2013
- Why A Warming Climate Is Making This Spring So Cold (… and Last Spring So Warm)
Category Archives: Prairie Insects
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
13 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
Keeping a Low Profile in the Spring
At times, prairies in east-central Nebraska can have such an abundance of large wildflowers, they resemble flower gardens. Early spring is not one of those times. There are plenty of prairie flowers blooming this spring, but you wouldn’t know it from a distance. In … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Insects, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography, Prairie Plants
Tagged anemone caroliniana, astragalus crassicarpus, ballooning, blooms, buffalo pea, crab spiders, early season, flowers, grassland, ground plum, lithospermum incisum, prairie, short, short growing, short stature, spring, spring flowers, viola rafinesquii, wildflowers, wind flower
6 Comments
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 18, 2013
I love that my kids enjoy nature. My two sons, in particular, are really enthusiastic about insects and spiders at the moment. So enthusiastic, in fact, that every spider in our house gets picked up and presented to me. “Dad! … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Insects, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography
Tagged enthusiasm, kids, nature, photography, photos of spiders, spider
13 Comments
A Weekend Walk in the Woods
We visited family in eastern Nebraska this weekend. My in-laws have an oak woodland that I’ve become familiar with over the years, and I was glad to have a little time to wander through it. Because of the cool spring, I was curious … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Insects, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography, Prairie Plants
Tagged forest, great plains, leaf litter, mite, moss, nebraska, oak woodland, red mite, sarpy county, sporophyte, woodland
4 Comments
Photo of the Week – April 11, 2013
Sometimes, you can see a lot by just sitting down. I carved out some time in the field last Friday to collect data on poison hemlock in our research plots. After finishing that, I had about half an hour before I needed to head … Continue reading
Photo of the Week – March 21, 2013
Last week, I found ant species #23. If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know that we’re trying to inventory the ant and bee species (and others) in our Platte River Prairies. Our main purpose is to see whether … Continue reading
Should We Be Conducting Prescribed Fires During Drought?
As we enter a second year of drought in central Nebraska, I’m starting to hear discussions about whether or not it’s a good idea to conduct prescribed fires when conditions are so dry. I have some ideas about this, but am curious … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Animals, Prairie Insects, Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Plants
Tagged burn in drought year, burning, drought, dry weather, fire, forage production, grassland, management objectives, prairie, prescribed fire, safety, soil moisture, wildlife habitat
28 Comments
