A may apple flower hides beneath the canopy of its own leaves. The Nature Conservancy’s Rulo Bluffs Preserve, Nebraska.

There were still some spring wildflowers in bloom at the Preserve, including the mayapples (Poldophyllum peltatum) shown above.  It was good to see them – they were motivation for slogging up the hill to the next patch of garlic mustard…

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 (and see live examples) with Dennis Ferraro of the University of Nebraska.

- Take a birding hike with Michelle Biodrowski (graduate student from the University of Nebraska-Omaha) and learn about her research on how grassland birds respond to the edges between patch-burn grazing habitat patches – spoiler alert: it’s good news.

- Find out how The Nature Conservancy is using high-diversity prairie restoration and fire/grazing management to create diverse and resilient grasslands.  See both the tools of the trade and the on-the-ground results.

- Learn to identify prairie and wetland plants with Gerry Steinauer, the state botanist for Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

- See the results of more than a decade of experimentation with overseeding degraded prairies.  (Major lesson: use LOTS of seed)

Grasshopper sparrows and other prairie birds are abundant in the Platte River Prairies. Learn about all the species and the way they respond to prairie management from Michelle Biodrowski (UNO).

In addition, we’ll have speakers and/or displays on prairie invertebrates, small mammals, invasive species, and much more.  We’re still developing the agenda, and will get more information out when we have it.

The field day is free and open to the public.  Snacks and cold water/lemonade will be provided, but please bring your own lunch. Dress for hiking in grasslands, and bring your own water bottle, plenty of sunscreen, and insect repellant.

Events will run from approximately 9am to 4pm, so come and go as you please.  No registration is required, but we’d appreciate hearing from you if you plan to come.  Contact Mardell Jasnowski if you think you’ll be attending - and for more information. mjasnowski@tnc.org or 402-694-4191.

Click here for directions to the site.

These blooming ground plum plant, while very pretty, looks like its alone in a vast barren landscape.  In reality, there are lots of other flowers on the prairie – they’re just hard to see.  This photo was taken last week at Prairie Plains Resource Institute’s Griffith Prairie.

In the coming weeks, things will change.  Late spring and early summer flowers such as ragwort (Senecio plattensis), shell-leaf penstemon (Penstemon grandiflorus) and spiderworts (Tradescantia spp) will be displayed at the top of stems that rise a foot or two from the ground.   Clusters of those flowers can easily be seen from hundreds of yards away.  For now, however, wildflowers are keeping a low profile.

Of course, short stature and small flowers make perfect sense in the early spring.  Flowers that bloom at the beginning of the growing season don’t have much time between winter’s thaw and blooming time (especially this year!)  The small plants are in a race to bloom before neighbors – especially grasses - overtop them, making it difficult for both pollinators and light to find them.   For the most part, spring-flowering plants grow just long enough stems to get their flowers off the ground and make those flowers just big enough to attract pollinating insects.

Wind flower (Anemone caroliniana) blooms at heights of about 3 or 4 inches. Because both the flowers and stems are small, even a big patch of wind flowers can be difficult to see from 15-20 feet away.

While not universally true, many early flowering plants seem to thrive best when a prairie isn’t loaded with thatch and tall dead vegetation from previous seasons.  Prairies burned during the dormant season or were grazed or hayed the previous summer/fall seem to have the greatest abundance of spring flowers.  Of course, there is some observer bias involved in measuring that since spring flowers are much easier to see in short vegetation…

Wild pansy, aka Johnny Jump-up (Viola rafinesquii), is an annual violet that is spreading (in a good way) across some of our restored Platte River Prairies. It is flourishing this spring in sites that were grazed during last year’s drought.

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Many narrowleaf puccoon (Lithospermum incisum) plants are blooming at even shorter heights than usual this spring. While never a tall plant, narrowleaf puccoon often reaches heights of 6-10 inches or so, but this year, many are blooming at 4-6 inches in height.

This spring, I’ve been paying particular attention to prairies that we burned and grazed during drought of 2012.  Most were awfully short, brown, and barren-looking by late last summer and stayed that way through the winter.  It’s been nice to see them greening up this spring and supporting good numbers of wildflowers.  Interestingly, I’ve seen more wind flowers (Anemone caroliniana) this year than I can remember from previous springs.  The two sites in which I’ve seen big patches of wind flowers were both burned and grazed pretty hard last year, making the flowers easy to see, but probably also allowing the plants to grow with little competition for light or other resources.

While spring flowers are short in stature, they seem to be able to attract pollinators.  Of course, many of those pollinators are good at finding hidden plants by following their scent.  In addition, when the number of flowering species is limited, pollinators do what it takes to find whatever flowers are available!

What’s more interesting to me is that as I’ve been seeing and photographing wind flowers over the last week or so, I’ve seen a surprising number of tiny crab spiders on them.  I would guess that there’s a crab spider on one out of every 10-15 flowers, and they all appear (to me) to be of the same species.  I wish I knew how those crab spiders found the flowers.

A crab spider sits on a wind flower at Griffith prairie in the early morning, waiting for the flower to open and attract pollinators for it to catch.

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45 miles away from Griffith Prairie, this crab spider (of the same species?) was having a successful afternoon of hunting on a wind flower in our Platte River Prairies.

I’ve been seeing a lot of trailing silks in the air lately, so I know some spiders are on the move (by ballooning), and I assume young crab spiders disperse that way.  But if they do, landing on or near a flowering plant at this time of year seems awfully unlikely.  Are the crab spiders I’m seeing on wind flowers the lucky few that landed near a good hunting place?  Or are most crab spiders able to find a flower to hunt on, even in the spring when flowers are scattered around in low numbers?  If so, how?

Maybe one of you will be able to answer those questions for me.  For now, I’ll just add them to my long list of other questions – a list that will surely grow considerably during this coming field season.

A red-sided garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis). The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.  Click on this or other photos for a larger, sharper image.

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 one.  This one may have been looking for love too, but I interrupted it just long enough to get a few photos.

I know snakes evoke strong emotions from many people – and not necessarily in a positive way.  It’s too bad, because if you can stand to look at them up close, they are really beautiful creatures.  I love to study the patterns of scales, especially on the head.  The scales look as if they might have been put together by a master stone mason.

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A furry animal in a small bur oak tree. The light was beautiful – as was the moon.

When we got closer, we realized it wasn’t a raccoon – it was a porcupine!  In my whole life, I’d seen a couple dead porcupines along the road, and a couple trees that had been worked over by porcupines, but I don’t think I’d ever seen a live porcupine before - they’re just not very common in my part of the state.

Once we figured out what it was, Jeff and David graciously let me approach the porcupine first.  (Thinking back now, they may have just been waiting to see if I got a face full of quills…)  The sun was on its way down and the light was beautiful.  I snapped a couple photos as I approached in case it took off, but the porcupine didn’t seem inclined to run, and before long, I ended up right at the base of the tree.  Because the tree was short, I could stand uphill and be at the same elevation as the porcupine.  Face to face, you might say.

However, it’s not accurate to say I was face to face with the porcupine because the porcupine was steadfastly looking away from me.  I suppose that’s the right defensive strategy when your weapons are on your backside, but it made photography kind of a challenge…  If I walked to south side of the tree, the porcupine would look north.  If I walked to the north side, it would look south.  It wasn’t moving quickly, but even if I ran to the other side, it would be looking away by the time I got there.

This was the only view of the porcupine I could get – no matter which side of the tree I was on. It looked like maybe the tips of many of his quills had been singed off in last year’s wildfire. (?)

As you might imagine, Jeff and David thought this was mighty entertaining.  By this time, they’d sidled close enough that I could hear their chuckling.  I told David to make himself useful and come help.  I figured the porcupine couldn’t look away from both of us if we were on opposite sides of the tree.  I was right about that – it just looked away from ME.  David was apparently non-threatening, or at least less threatening than I was.  Maybe  that’s because it’s hard to seem threatening when you’re laughing as hard as David was.  While David and porcupine shared their little joke, I was still left facing the backside of my intended photo subject.

Here’s David Weber conspiring with the porcupine. You can tell by the grin on his face how bad he felt about the whole situation.

After a few more minutes of jocularity, the porcupine did eventually turn my way.  I’m not sure why – I suppose it probably figured I wasn’t going to leave it alone otherwise.  Of course, when it DID look at me, its face was in the shadow of a tree branch.  After all that trouble getting the porcupine to look in me in the face, I wasn’t going home with photos of a porcupine that looked like it had stripes on its face, so I called David into action again.  Trying (unsuccessfully) to stifle his chortling, David grabbed the end of the branch and swung it around a little so the porcupine’s face came out of the shadows.  …At which point, the porcupine looked back over at David and away from me.

By this point in the story, some of you are probably feeling sorry for the porcupine.  The poor thing had been sitting in a tree, just calmly chewing on a branch, when it was rudely accosted by a frustrated photographer and his two snickering friends.  Now, one of the snickerers was swinging its branch around.  Well, let me just say this:  of the four of us, the porcupine wasn’t the one showing signs of stress.  It seemed competely calm - content to play the straight man in the comedic sketch my companions were enjoying so much.

Finally, between David’s branch maneuvering and my persistence (stubbornness?) I did end up with a couple halfway decent shots of the front side of the porcupine.

You have to look really closely to see its self-satisfied smile…

One decent photo, even with the shadow arcoss its face.

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See that smug look?

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Ground plum flowers at the Helzer prairie near Stockham, Nebraska.

Besides being an attractive flower in the early spring, ground plum also produces large edible pods that taste like raw peas when they’re still green.  Those pods grow to about an inch in diameter, and resemble plums – especially when they turn red later in the year.

I haven’t yet figured out why ground plum plants that flower in the spring don’t always produce pods.  We had one seed harvest year (2001) in which we collected a 30 gallon barrel full of seed pods from one 60 acre prairie, but I have never seen that kind of production since.  Most years, we do a lot of searching but find little seed – even where we know plants were blooming prolifically in the spring.  I assume it’s a combination of weather, management, and herbivory pressure, but that doesn’t really narrow it down much!

Mike and Jeff are part of Moonshell Media, the group we’re contracting with for this project.  You may have seen their work before – most of the Moonshell Media staff are also working on the Platte Basin Timelapse project, which includes video from one of our Platte River wetland restoration projects, along with numerous other stories of water and the Platte River from headwaters to mouth.

This timelapse camera will be taking a photo every daylight hour for the next several years, recording the recovery of this landscape from the Fairfield Creek wildfire in July 2012.

The timelapse project at the Niobrara Valley Preserve is being funded by the Nebraska Environmental Trust, as part of a larger project to study the aftermath of the wildfire and generate information to help reduce negative impacts from similar events in the future.  Eacn of our nine cameras will be taking one photo every hour, during daylight hours, for at least several years.  An additional camera will be a mobile unit that we’ll move from location to location to document short-term changes or events.  The cameras will help us tell the overall story of wildfire recovery, but will also link with and help illustrate the results of several research projects happening in the same places.

Here are some photos of the installation last week, along with descriptions of what some of the cameras will be documenting.  I will, of course, let you know when/where videos from the project can be viewed when its time.

Jeff Dale fastens a camera mount near the top of a windmill tower.

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The “windmill cam” will capture a wide view of bison-grazed sandhill prairie as it greens up this spring, and then will follow it over the next several years, as dynamic patterns of bison grazing, weather, and prescribed fires shape its habitat structure and species composition.

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Jeff Dale and David Weber install a camera that will look straight down a steep slope on the ridge north of the river. Among other things, this camera will help capture evidence of any soil erosion that occurs over time under the burned ponderosa pine woodland.

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This camera is set up to record any sediment that pools up at the base of the (formerly) pine-covered ridge. In addition, it will record the resprouting of several oak trees growing within the frame.

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This camera was installed on a new fenceline - rebuilt in a new location after the initial fence was destroyed by fire. The new fence location expands the south end of the bison pasture into what was formerly cattle pasture. The camera will record differences in the recovery of prairie grazed year-round by bison (left) vs. prairie grazed only periodically by cattle. One of many differences we expect to see is that yucca will largely disappear in the bison pasture. Winter grazing (by either cattle OR bison) suppresses yucca, which is rarely grazed at all during the summer.

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How fast will this sandhills blowout carve away recently-burned sand prairie? Our camera will help us find out. Based on previous experience with summer fires, we don’t expect to see any significant increase in wind erosion, but this camera (combined with aerial photographs, and perhaps on-the-ground measurements) will allow us to test that assumption.

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Jeff digs a post hole for the camera I’m most excited about. This camera will focus on a 8×10 foot rectangle of bison-grazed prairie, looking straight down on it from above. Over the next several years, we should be able to watch the plant community recover from the fire, but we’ll also see yearly differences in which species bloom, when they bloom, and how they respond to weather, grazing, future fires, etc. We can also record any long-term changes in the plant composition within this area.

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We want to see how the plant community will recover underneath dense cedar trees now that those cedars are dead. We expect lots of weeds, but hope not to see many truly invasive plants.

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Jeff, the technical wizard who designed most of the timelapse camera systems, explains how to adjust them and keep them working.  I followed some of it, I think…

Because of the late spring, I only found three wildflower species in bloom.  Ground plum (aka buffalo pea or Astragalus crassicarpus) was going strong, and there were a few pussy toes (Antennaria neglecta) getting started.  But the most abundant flower was the good ol’ dandelion.  While the non-native yard weed is disliked by many people, it was certainly popular with many bees and flies who didn’t have many other options for pollen and nectar sources today.

A sweat bee enjoying a pollen-loaded dandelion at the Helzer prairie south of Aurora, Nebraska.  It’s ALMOST sharp enough to be  a good photo.

I tried a few times to photograph bees and flies visiting dandelions, but most were too wary to let me get very close.  The light was pretty harsh anyway, and the bees certainly weren’t going to let me pull out my diffuser (2 ft diameter thin-cloth-covered circle) before they zipped away.  I did finally manage to find one bee so focused on pollen that I got one nearly decent photo before it noticed me.  Most of the time, however, the pollinators left before I got anywhere close.

As I approached one flower, the small bee on it flew away, but I noticed something else still on the flower.  When I got close enough, I realized it was a spider – apparently hoping to make a meal of the bee I’d inadvertently chased away.  While I felt a little bad about that, I thought maybe the spider would make a more accomodating photo subject, so I got out my diffuser and tripod to see what I could do.  The spider scooted off the top of the dandelion flower when I got close, but it only retreated as far as the stem of the flower, so I did get a few shots of it there.

A spider on a dandelion flower stem. Moments before it had been stalking a small bee on top of the flower, but a clumsy photographer scared the bee away.

The spider then (very quickly) scuttled a few inches away from the flower and stopped again.  If I hadn’t seen it move, it would have disappeared completely against the background of the identically-colored prairie thatch.  Beautiful camouflage!

The same spider as above, showing off it’s perfect camouflage coloring against the grass litter.

I sure wish I’d gotten to see the spider try for that bee.  I’m not sure what kind of spider it was, but it certainly wasn’t a crab spider, which is what I typically see hunting on flowers.  This one looked more like an active hunting spider (similar to a wolf spider) than a nearly blind ambush spider  (such as a crab spider).  I’m guessing prey isn’t overly abundant at this time of year, and its probably hard to turn down an opportunity to hunt in one of the few places you’re pretty sure to find it.

Dandelions might not be everyone’s favorite flower, but I’m sure glad to have them in my prairie in the early spring.  Apparently, so are quite a few bees and flies - and at least one enterprising spider!

As a result, I have some mixed feelings about Arbor Day.

A cottonwood tree in a Platte River prairie at sunrise.  Beautiful, but not without some impacts on prairie ecology.

I don’t harbor any particular enmity toward trees themselves.  In fact, some of my favorite places in Nebraska have fantastic woodlands, including The Nature Conservancy’s Rulo Bluffs Preserve and Niobrara Valley Preserve.  I also really like the trees in my yard – especially the one that produces a big crop of pie cherries each year!

On the other hand, I don’t hesitate to use all necessary force to remove trees from grasslands.  Why?  There are numerous reasons.  Here are a few examples:

- The shade from trees changes the microclimate underneath them, suppressing the growth of many prairie plants and favoring others, including some nasty invasive species that can then spread into prairies.

- Trees completely change the habitat structure of a prairie, making it unsuitable for many wildlife species that rely on wide open habitats.  As trees and shrubs increase in density, prairie animals are forced out.

- Many grassland birds avoid nesting near woodlands, or even lone trees.  There are multiple reasons for this, but a big one is the abundance of predators that hang around in and under trees.  A line of trees along the edge of a prairie creates a wide ”dead zone” within which very few prairie bird species will nest.  In landscapes where most prairies are already small and fragmented, the loss of that additional habitat can have serious consequences.

- Once trees and shrubs become established, they tend to promote the establishment of more.  Some spread by rhizomes (underground stems) and all of them are good perch sites for birds, which drop seeds out both ends onto the ground beneath the trees.  Once on the ground, shade from the trees reduces the vigor of prairie plants and helps woody seedlings thrive.  Dense tree and shrub patches can also become fire proof because their shade prevents grass growth beneath them - and it’s grass that carries fire.

Burning prairie can suppress the encroachment of trees, including eastern red cedars.

Woody plants, including both trees and shrubs, have always been good at invading prairies but, historically, fires and dry climate helped keep them from becoming established across most of the grasslands of the Great Plains.  Today, fire suppression, landscape fragmentation, and even changing levels of carbon and nitrogen in the atmosphere are giving trees the upper hand.  As a result, my staff and I (ok, mostly my staff nowadays) spend an inordinate amount of time cutting trees down, burning grasslands to kill trees, and treating trees with herbicides.

Can you see why a holiday that promotes tree planting – especially in a grassland state like Nebraska – might make me a little nervous?  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with planting trees, but the kind of trees being planted and the location they’re planted in makes all the difference in the world.

If you live near a prairie, here are two important tips to consider as you prepare to celebrate National Arbor Day by planting a tree (or lots of trees).

1. Do some research on the tree species you plant.  Some species, such as Siberian elm, Russian olive, Autumn olive, and other non-native trees and shrubs can be very invasive in grasslands, quickly spreading by seed far from the parent tree.  A quick internet search using the name of the tree and the word “invasive” will tell you whether or not the tree species you’re considering is one that could cause problems.  However, even many native trees can spread into grasslands, so that leads us to…

2. Carefully consider the location of your proposed tree planting.  As mentioned earlier, even a single tree, let alone a row along the edge or (heaven forbid!) through the middle of a prairie can wreak havoc on grassland birds and other species.  Prairies and their plant and animal inhabitants thrive in wide open habitats; adding trees to those habitats can really mess things up.

By all means, plant trees in your yard, around your farmstead, or in a local park or school.  Trees provide shade, habitat, food, and aesthetic beauty to cities, towns, and acreages, and you should feel good about contributing toward those things.  However, as you celebrate Arbor Day, please don’t forget about prairies, the plants and wildlife that rely on them, and the hard-working prairie ecologists and land managers trying to conserve them.

So,

Happy Arbor Day!

(please celebrate wisely)

The weather followed the same pattern we’ve seen the last couple weeks; cold and wet early, followed by gradual warming.  We delayed the trip a day to wait for the latest snowstorm to move through, but three inches of snow were waiting when we arrived mid-day on Tuesday.

Late April snow covers the Niobrara Valley.  The Nature Conservancy’s Niobrara Valley Preserve – Nebraska.

Most of the snow had melted by Tuesday evening, leaving barren post-wildfire soils exposed once more.  The cool spring has slowed early vegetation growth, though there were some sedges and a very few other species starting to green up in the prairies.

A rivulet of water runs out of melting snow in the burned pine woodland north of the river.

Some of the cameras we set up will watch for soil erosion.  I was pleased not to see any evidence that severe erosion started over the winter – even with some decent rain and snow events.  There has been some, of course, but less than I’d expected.  Some of the erosion created interesting patterns in the ashy sandy soils (below).

A bur oak leaf lies in a pattern of sand and ash.

The next several weeks and months of green-up will bring big changes to the appearance of the Niobrara Valley, which has been largely barren and drab-colored since the wildfires last July.  It’ll be really nice to see some green there again.