This weekend, our family visited my in-laws in Sarpy County (south of Omaha). While we were there, I grabbed a couple hours of photography time during an evening and morning when the wind was nearly calm. In the evening, I poked around a little prairie planting in the yard. The next morning I walked a grassy cropfield edge.
From a distance, neither area looked like it had much going on. Very few flowers were in bloom, and there wasn’t much obvious insect activity. As always happens with prairies, though, there’s always much more than meets the eye – sometimes you just have to get down on your knees and look for it. I took some of my favorite photos from those couple hours and made them into a brief slideshow.
I’m not sure how this slideshow will work for those of you getting this post by email. If it doesn’t play correctly, click on the title of the post at the top of your email to go to the actual post, and that should fix it.
The Prairie Ecologist 
The email just links to the blog for the slideshow. Recently the emails just show the first bit of the blog and links to the site for the rest which I like.
Great sideshow. I’ve been seeing stinkbug but never knew the name. Thank you.
great show,love the look on the praying mantis, this gives me hope of finding some bug life in my class next month, I;ve only seen very few dragon fly’s thus far.
On June 22 I took a photo of milkweed flowers over at a restores prairie near Cedar Rapids. I could identify the soldier beetles, Asian lady beetles and large milkweed bugs, but was hung up on the longhorned milkweed beetle. Thanks for the help.
Have you read the Donald Stokes comments in his Guide of Observing Insect Lives about the variety of insects on milkweeds that have red and black coloring? I carry that guide and the NWF field guide with me on trips to local parks.
I enjoy your blog and look forward to reading more of your posts.