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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 Natural History
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
Photo of the Week – June 7, 2013
Prairies demonstrate their resilience regularly, but usually in a fairly subtle way. They tend to adjust their plant composition after fire, grazing, or drought in ways you might not notice unless you were a botanist. Once in while, however, prairies take it to the next level and … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography, Prairie Plants, Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction
Tagged abundance, drought, ecological resilience, grassland, impacts, large flowered beardtongue, penstemon, penstemon grandiflorus, platte river prairies, prairie, profusion, recovery, resilience, shell leaf penstemon, the nature conservancy, wildflower
10 Comments
Ragwort – Prettier (and More Valuable) than its Name Might Suggest
One of my favorite spring flowers is prairie ragwort (Senecio plattensis, aka Packera plattensis). Its bright yellow flowers add welcome color to prairies every May, especially when it appears in high numbers. We always try to harvest as much seed … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Insects, Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography, Prairie Plants, Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction
Tagged flower, grassland, groundsel, nebraska, opportunistic, packera plattensis, platte river, pollination, pollinator, prairie, prairie ragwort, ragwort, senecio plattensis, weed, weedy, wildflower
5 Comments
Photo of the Week – May 31, 2013
I started my annual plant community monitoring this week. That work consists mainly of inventorying the plant species within small sampling plots. Forcing myself to walk regularly spaced transects and stare at a square meter of prairie at a time … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography, Prairie Plants, Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction
Tagged bracted, grassland, image, landscape, nature, nebraska, photo, photography, platte river prairies, prairie, scenic, spiderwort, the nature conservancy, tradescantia bracteata, wildflower
8 Comments
Wildfire Recovery at The Niobrara Valley Preserve – Spring Green Up
Spring is finally changing the color of The Nature Conservancy’s Niobrara Valley Preserve in north central Nebraska. After last summer’s wildfire and drought, much of the Preserve was barren and brown all winter. Now, the area has had several small rainfalls during the last couple months, followed by a hard 3 … Continue reading
Photo of the Week – May 23, 2013
Many thanks for all the great feedback on my garlic mustard post earlier this week. If there’s one big lesson from all the responses and suggestions I got via blog comments and emails, it’s that there is no standard effective … Continue reading
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
Photo of the Week – May 16, 2013
We spent two days in the southeast corner of Nebraska this week, pulling garlic mustard at our Rulo Bluffs Preserve. It was the second trip in as many weeks, and there was still plenty to do the second time around. … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography, Prairie Plants
Tagged flower, hickory, may apple, nebraska, oak, rulo, rulo bluffs preserve, wildflower, woodland
6 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
