Category Archives: Prairie Photography

Photo of the Week – February 17, 2012

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Pop Quiz:  Are the creatures in this photo butterflies or moths?  Which is the male and which is the female?

Sarpy County, Nebraska

Answer:

These are moths.  While they have enough color that many people might call them butterflies, the antennae distinguish them as moths.  Butterflies have long straight antennae with little knobs at the tip.  Moths, on the other hand, have fuzzy antennae, and males (such as the one on the right in this photo) have much fuzzier antennae than females.  The males use their antennae to find females by following their pheromone trails.

Now, maybe one of you can tell me why at least some moths appear to have a darker spot in the center of their big compound eyes – making it look like they have a large pupil in each eye.  I’ve noticed the trait on other moths I’ve photographed, but don’t know whether or not the dark spots have a particular function.  I’m guessing that among the readers of this blog someone will know the answer.  Thanks in advance!

(Oh, and if you’d like to identify the moth species for me, that’d be great too!)

Photo of the Week – February 10, 2012

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This has not been a great winter for snow photography.  Mild temperatures have made it nice for many outdoor activities (excluding ice skating, sledding, skiing, etc.) and for overwintering sandhill cranes, but there hasn’t been any snow on the ground since December.

That finally changed last weekend with about 11 inches of heavy snow and strong winds.  I haven’t had much time to get out and enjoy the snow yet, but I did manage a quick trip to a prairie west of town this week.  It was one of those days on which the sun comes up in a clear sky and there’s about 15 minutes of light between the time the sun pops over the horizon and the time when the sun becomes so bright that the glare makes photos difficult.  Because of that, I didn’t come home with very many photos.

Still, it was nice to be out in the snow.  Hopefully, it’ll stick around for a little while.

Canada milkvetch seed heads stick up above a snow drift. Restored prairie at Deep Well Wildlife Management Area near Phillips, Nebraska.

Snow changes things fairly dramatically for foraging animals.  This mild winter has made it relatively easy for animals to find what seeds and other food items are available.  With nearly a foot of snow on the ground, however, those animals have to either burrow around to find food or rely on food sticking out above the snow (like the seeds in these Canada milkvetch pods.)

The sandhill cranes along the Platte River right are suddenly unable to forage widely for waste corn in the fields, but are much more restricted to those areas where the wind scoured most of the snow off of high points in cropfields.  It appears that we’ll have cold temperatures for a while now, and that will keep the snow around.  It’ll be interesting to see if the cranes decide to tough it out here until warm temperatures return or head south a ways to find easier foraging.