Category Archives: Prairie Natural History

Square Meter of Prairie Project – June 2018

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Another month has passed, and I’ve managed to carve out some more time staring at the little square meter of prairie I’m photographing this year.  In June, activity really picked up as lead plant (Amorpha canescens) and butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) started blooming within the plot.  However, there was plenty to photograph besides just those species and the many insects they attracted.  I continue to be inspired by the diversity of life I’m finding in a very small plot of land.  Hopefully, I can pass along some of that inspiration, both during these periodic updates and when I somehow assemble all of this at the end of the project.  Here are just a few of the photos taken during June within one single square meter of Lincoln Creek Prairie in Aurora, Nebraska.

I’ve seen quite a few beetles in the plot, including several different species during June. Thanks to Bugguide.net, this one has been identified as Coleothorpa dominicana, in case you’re interested.

This is a completely different gray beetle, and I don’t know what it is, but there were several in the plot late in June.

This beautiful orange beetle (Anomoea sp.) was on a lead plant flower, just as it was starting to bloom.

I don’t know what these little beetles are, but they’ve been in the plot every time I’ve visited during the last month or so. They were usually (maybe always?) on Maximilian sunflower.

I was really glad to see butterfly milkweed blooming. I assumed it would attract quite a few insects, both pollinators and insects that feed on the foliage. So far, I’ve actually seen very few insects on butterfly milkweed. Maybe that’ll change soon, but it’ll have to be quick because the flowering period is wrapping up.

The tiny blossoms of lead plant are especially beautiful when seen up close.

Mike Arduser informs me that this bee species is Andrena quintilus, a specialist feeder on lead plant.

This wasp was only a brief visitor to the plot, but it stuck around long enough to be photographed.

This long-horned beetle was eating the pollen, and probably other parts of the lead plant flowers.  While beetles like this can help pollinate flowers, they also damage them, so they’re probably not the intended audience from the flower’s standpoint.

During the last couple weeks, invasive Japanese beetles have invaded the prairie, including my little plot. This one was denuding a lead plant flower stalk.

At any one time, there must be close to 100 ants in my little plot, and there are several different species. This is one of the bigger ones.

About a week after I got my first ever photos of a lynx spider (not inside my plot, but nearby) I found this one INSIDE my plot, and it sat nicely for me.

There are lots of different fly species that hang around the plot, but this is one of the smallest.

Just a few minutes after I photographed the lynx spider, I spotted it again (or another just like it), this time with one of those tiny flies in tow.

This metallic-looking jumping spider ALMOST stayed in the same place long enough for a photo. Even at 1/125 second shutterpeed, I wasn’t able to freeze the movement of this quick little bugger.

About a week after missing the first jumping spider photo, I finally got the same (?) spider to sit still long enough to capture this image.

There are two milkweed plants in my plot -butterfly milkweed and common milkweed – but this long-horned milkweed beetle wasn’t on either of them. It was on Maximilian sunflower, at least when I saw it.

This might be my proudest capture of this project to date, but only because I’ve seen lots of pearl crescent butterflies come into and through my plot, but most of them took off well before I got within photo range. For this photo, I had to stalk very carefully (and get really lucky).

Photo of the Week – June 29, 2018

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We spent a productive week at the Niobrara Valley Preserve this week, collecting a mountain of data.  Five of us spent our days scrambling across the Sandhills, counting flowering plants, quantifying milkweed populations, and estimating habitat cover.  As always, we got to observe far more than what we were focusing on for science.  We saw bald eagles, box turtles, a couple different snakes, pronghorn, mice, bird nests, families of northern bobwhites and sharp-tailed grouse, countless kinds of invertebrates, and much more.  It was an exhausting, but fulfilling week.

The science crew for this week. From left to right: Alex Brechbill and Olivia Schouten (Hubbard Fellows), Amanda Hefner (Conservation Assistant at NVP), and Katharine Hogan (former Hubbard Fellow and current PhD student at the U of Nebraska-Lincoln).

The above photo shows the kind of energy our crew had, though it was also taken just as the week was starting.  Hot sun, wet grass, and lots of massive poison ivy patches eventually knocked their enthusiasm down a notch or two, but we all still had a great time.  The crew certainly made me feel twice their age (which I am, for at least one of them), and not just because I’m still a little hobbled by my recovering ankle.  I appreciated their patience as they waited for me at the end of each sampling grid.

After each day of data collection, I spent the bulk of my evening time trying to build up an inventory of aerial photos and video with our drone.  I flew over the river, across open grasslands and prairie dog towns, and among herds of bison.  My post from earlier this week showed a small slice of just one evening’s imagery.  It’ll probably take me weeks or months to get through all the footage from the last several days, but I do have one tiny video clip to share with you today.

On Tuesday night, I  followed a small portion of our east bison herd around for a while.  I was skirting the edges of the herd with the drone, trying to get a feel for how close I could get before the bison started to react to the vehicle’s presence.  The bison were certainly aware of the drone, but while they edged away when I got too close, they certainly didn’t act frightened or panicked.  A few hundred yards from the main group, a lone bison bull was grazing by himself.  I decided to test its patience a little (in the name of science, of course).  I flew the drone to within 15-20 yards or so of it, and lowered it down to 10 or 12 feet off the ground.  Then I just hovered right there while it was eating.  (Well, the drone hovered there – I was very safely standing a couple hundred yards away, right next to my truck!)

As I watched through the screen on my controller, the bull glanced up a few times while it grazed, and then eventually raised its head to chew and watch the drone.  It chewed and watched for almost a minute.  Just as I was getting tired of the experiment and started to push the button to end the video, the bull’s patience apparently ran out.

Oh boy, do I wish I hadn’t hit the “stop recording” button when I did, but you get a pretty good picture of what came next.  I don’t know if it would have jumped high enough to hit the drone, but I do know that my suddenly sweaty hands pushed the “UP!!!” button on the controller as fast I could when that bull started its charge.  One of the reasons I’m sharing this video is that it’s a great reminder that while bison are incredible and beautiful creatures, they are also unpredictable and dangerous.  People die, or are seriously injured, every year on public lands when they ignore the unpredictable and dangerous part of the equation, and try to get too close to these huge animals.  Bison aren’t going to chase you down and trample you to death for no reason, but if you invade their comfort zone, they are very capable of defending themselves.

This photo was taken just a few minutes after the video.  I was safely in my truck…

As soon as I flew the drone away, the bison returned to calmly grazing, probably congratulating itself on how easily it had scared away that odd-looking, noisy, and pesky bird.  After watching the bull for a while from a distance, I drove slowly closer to it and photographed it as it continued grazing.  It was well aware of my presence, but is used to being around pickup trucks.  Since I wasn’t coming AT him, he calmly grazed and wandered on his way.

I’m fully aware of how fortunate I am to have my job, and to have access to the places we own and conserve. I’m incredibly grateful for everyone who reads this blog, but even more to people whose financial support allows our conservation work to happen.  I wish I could give each of you a personalized tour of our sites, but in lieu of that, I’ll continue trying to do the next best thing – show you the diversity and beauty of those places as best I can through writing and photography.  You can also come visit, of course, and hike the trails to see what you can see.  In the meantime, stay tuned for more photos and videos.

Information on visiting the Niobrara Valley Preserve can be found here and on visiting the Platte River Prairies here.