Category Archives: Prairie Animals

Photo of the Week – August 31 2017

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I’m not a wildlife photographer.  Wildlife photographers put in countless hours tracking, observing, and either stalking subjects or sitting in a blind.  I admire wildlife photographers but I don’t have the patience to be one.  Instead, I get my wildlife photos the easy way – by always (ALWAYS) carrying my camera when I’m in the field so that when I have a random close encounter with an animal, I’ve got a chance to take its picture.  This month, I’ve had three successful (and accidental) photographic encounters with mammalian wildlife species, and am sharing the results here.

Mule deer (in the rain) at The Nature Conservancy’s Niobrara Valley Preserve.

Back in mid-August, I was up at the Niobrara Valley Preserve collecting data on flowering plants across various management treatments.  I’d gotten up early that morning and driven the 4+ hours up to Niobrara because the forecast said the rain would be ending in the early morning and it looked like a good day to be in the field.  Instead, it rained all day.  While I was driving my truck between sampling locations (in the rain) two mule deer flushed out of some brushy vegetation in front of me and turned to look at my truck.  The buck turned away again and took off over the hill, but the doe stayed behind to see what I was up to.  I rolled down the passenger side window of the truck, grabbed my camera from behind the seat, and took this photo.  I didn’t even get wet – did I mention it was raining?

A young porcupine at dusk – The Nature Conservancy’s Niobrara Valley Preserve.

Later the same day, it finally stopped raining, the sun came out, and both the landscape and I dried out a little before evening.  I wandered around with my camera until the photography light disappeared, and then hopped in my truck and headed back to headquarters.  As I was coming down the lane between the mailbox and the crew quarters, where I was staying, a young porcupine crossed the road in front of me and climbed up the embankment.  Other people had been seeing the same porcupine this summer, but though I’d seen its mom, this was the first time I’d seen the young one.  It was moving quickly enough that I didn’t have time to grab my camera out the back seat of my truck, and instead just grabbed my cell phone out of my pocket as I climbed up the embankment to get a closer look.  The porcupine didn’t even pause or turn its head to look at me as it made its way to the top and then waddled off across the prairie toward a small patch of trees.  I squeezed off three shots with my phone camera and got one that was decent.

Black-tailed jackrabbit in the Platte River Prairies.

The final photo (and my favorite) comes from yesterday, when I was riding my ATV through our Platte River Prairies.  I was cruising along pretty slowly and flushed a jack rabbit.  That’s not unusual, but in this case, instead of popping up out of the grass and bounding off with its ears held high, the rabbit took two quick hops and then hunkered back down in the vegetation.  I stopped the ATV in surprise, and when I realized the rabbit had invested in its hiding strategy, I grabbed my camera from my bag and took a couple pictures of it through the grass.  Then I slid slowly off the seat of the 4-wheeler and took a few steps to get a better angle for the photo (above) I ended up liking the best.  After that, we just sat there, keeping an eye on each other, until I decided I had work to do and wished the rabbit a pleasant day.  As I started up the ATV motor, the rabbit finally decided to scamper off.

Maybe someday I’ll gain the patience and perseverance it takes to be a real wildlife photographer.  In the meantime, I’ll just keep my camera handy for those times when the wildlife decides to pose for me.

Well, Now, I Wonder…

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People often seem surprised to learn that I’m an introvert – probably because in large groups, I feel pretty comfortable being the center of attention and talking to an interested audience.  However, when I’m just one of many people in a large gathering, I naturally retreat to the edges of the group where I don’t feel hemmed in by humanity.  As a result, during presentations out in the field, I tend to wander and explore while staying within earshot of what’s being said.  I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just keeping my escape routes open…

Accordingly, two of the three mysteries I wanted to share today were things I found while skulking in the background during a tour last Friday at the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge.  The first was a trailing wild bean plant (Strophostyles sp) with a series of intriguing holes in the leaves.  I showed a couple other people, but none of us knew what might have made the holes.  I’m guessing invertebrate, of course, but I don’t have any idea beyond that.  It looks to me like something was rasping away at the surface of the leaf until it punched all the way through and then repeated the process in a new spot.  Anyone recognize this?

Interesting holes in trailing wild bean leaves…

The second mystery relates to some piles of wild rose hip remains scattered around on the ground.  We were standing in the middle of a good patch of wild rose and talking about how plants in recently burned areas (at least this year) seemed to have lots of large fruits.  As I wandered around with my eyes scanning the ground, I spotted several places where some animal had apparently dismantled rose hips, leaving the skin (rind?  husk?) and seeds strewn about on the ground.

Rose hip remains.

At first, I was wondering why an animal would go through the trouble to open up the fruit and then not eat the seeds or skin since there’s not much more to the fruit than that.  Upon a closer look, though, it appears many of the seeds had been split in two, which makes me wonder if something was eating the center of the seeds and then spitting them out – almost like a ballplayer at a baseball game.  I’m guessing this is a small mammal, but don’t remember seeing piles quite like this before.  Help?

A closer look a the rose seeds, which seem to be split in half and hollowed out?

The final mystery was not something I discovered, but instead came from a question someone asked me.  I feel bad, but I honestly don’t remember who it was who asked – I’d give them credit if I did because it was a great question.  The question was, “Why don’t we see big flushes of annual sunflowers in the same place two years in a row, even when there is still plenty of bare ground?”  We’d been talking about the hypothesis that plains sunflower (Helianthus petiolaris) germinates really well when there is abundant bare soil – such as after a fire or drought.  However, the question asker rightly pointed out that it doesn’t seem like the same phenomenon repeats itself in the same location in the following year, even if those bare soil conditions still appear to be present.

Populations of plains sunflower, like the one our group explored in this burned patch of Sandhills prairie, don’t seem to flourish two years in a row, even when bare ground persists. There must be something else driving that population boom and/or restricting a subsequent one.

I don’t have an answer for that sunflower question.  Possible explanations could include 1) the majority of the available seed bank germinated the first year and seeds from that crop need a year or more to become stratified or otherwise prepared to germinate; 2) sunflowers produce chemicals that inhibit their own growth the next year (seems doubtful); 3) an insect, microbe, or other organism builds up large populations during population booms of sunflowers and then either eats or infects seeds/plants of the next generation, preventing them from establishing.  There are probably lots of other possibilities.  Anyone have the answer?

I’ve said it many times, and it’s always true – finding these kinds of mysteries is what helps keep me interested and excited about prairie ecology.  It’s fun to figure out the solution to the mysteries, but then I have to find more mysteries.  Fortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of them!