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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
Tag Archives: grassland
Photo of the Week – June 14, 2013
This was an interesting week for observations. Here are some of the things I saw and learned. . . . . . .
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
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
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 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
A Prairie Ecologist’s Perspective on Arbor Day
Today is National Arbor Day - a holiday initiated by J. Sterling Morton right here in my home state of Nebraska. The idea of Arbor Day is to encourage the planting of trees. However, as a prairie ecologist, I spend considerable effort trying to … 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
Is Poison Hemlock Repelled By Plant Diversity? Early Results Say Yes
How important is plant diversity? Most ecologists think it’s a critical component of resilient ecosystems. Last week I collected some data that lends support to that view. In some experimental prairie plantings we’ve established in our Platte River Prairies, plant diversity appears to be suppressing the invasion … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Natural History, Prairie Plants, Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction
Tagged conium maculatum, data, diverse seed mixture, grassland, nebraska, plant diversity, platte river prairie, poison hemlock, prairie, prairie planting, prairie reconstruction, prairie restoration, prairie seeding, research, seed mixture, species richness, value of plant diversity
8 Comments
