Several years ago, Brian Obermeyer of The Nature Conservancy hosted our annual patch-burn grazing working group meeting in the Flint Hills of Kansas. We stayed overnight at the Flying W ranch, a guest ranch in Chase County, KS. In the morning, I went for a walk with my camera to see what I could find as the sun was coming up.
Tallgrass prairie, rocks, and the remnants of an old rock fence in the Flint Hills of Kansas.
It was a beautiful morning for a walk, but I was having trouble finding the right shot. Sometimes smaller prairies are easier to photograph than large ones because there are fewer choices! Often, when this happens, I pull out my macro lens and start looking for flowers and/or insects to photograph, but I really wanted to capture the landscape I was in, so I kept the wide-angle lens on and kept walking. Eventually, I came upon an old rock fence and followed it until I found some color and texture to put in front of it.
The Prairie Ecologist 
Great photo Chris.
I have the same trouble in getting landscape shots. Nice job. I love the colors of the prairie.
Beautiful color and texture. Although I live in Virginia, the Flint Hills is the place where I want to be!
Just stunning, Chris. It really does make one want to be there!
PS — What is the yellow composite(?) waving around in the breeze there?
James – the yellow flower is broomweed (Amphiachyris dracunculoides). Likes disturbance, like grazing. This particular prairie had had plenty of that recently, I think! It can sometimes blanket entire sites, but acts (I hear) much like ragweeds act here – it diminishes greatly as grass vigor increases.
The taxonomy must have changed in 20 some years… I remember it as shown here..http://www.kswildflower.org/flower_details.php?flowerID=289
Great picture of a great area.
Thanks Craig,
I certainly won’t argue taxonomy with anyone. I struggle to remember latin names once, let alone all the changes! It’s nice that you can usually still find older names by doing an on-line search, and figure out what the most current analogue is!
Wow – really lovely. Makes me wish I could stand right there and watch the light change on the rocks and the sumac. What a view.