Uncategorized | The Prairie Ecologist

Looking for prairie wildflowers in the spring is much like an Easter egg hunt. Spring wildflowers tend to be small and difficult to see until you get close to them. From a distance, prairies might look like they haven’t yet woken up, but if you take the time to wander out into them, there’s abundant color and movement – albeit in small scattered bits.

Spikerush sedge (*Carex eleocharis*) is a small-statured sedge that hides for most of the year, but becomes more apparent when it blooms each spring.

Earlier this week, I spent a wonderful morning exploring Gjerloff Prairie (owned and managed by Prairie Plains Resource Institute). As I hiked up and down the steep loess hills, it felt like catching up with an old friend.

“So, how’s your spring going so far?”

“Ah, I see your anemones and early milkvetches are blooming, but the puccoon isn’t quite…oh – there’s one!”

“It was a wet winter, but the soil is sure dry now, isn’t it?”

“It’s nice to see the dragonflies migrating back north again and hear the grasshopper sparrows and western meadowlarks singing.”

…Here are some photos from that cool dewy morning at Gjerloff Prairie.

Spikerush sedge framed against the morning sun.

Missouri milkvetch (*Astragalus missouriensis*) is a tiny legume that grows on dry ridgetops and especially thrives when those areas have been recently short-cropped by grazers.

Carolina anemone, aka windflower (*Anemone carolinianum*) hadn’t opened up for the day.

Carolina anemone photographed with a wide-angle lens, showing more of the clone and prairie in the background. The front blossom was either starting to open or didn’t close property the night before.

A tiny crab spider on prairie dandelion (*Nothocalais cuspidata*).

Buffalo pea, aka ground plum (*Astragalus crassicarpus*).

Buffalo pea is like an exponentially larger version of Missouri milkvetch – in terms of footprint – but still only reaches 3-4 inches in height.

A variegated meadowhawk dragonfly, presumably a recently-arrived migrant, was cold and dew-covered.

The same dragonfly from a different angle.

Let’s take a minute to appreciate the planet we live on. It’s a pretty amazing place – even the parts that don’t have prairies. Here are a few photos to help remind all of us how great the world is.

Helping to keep our planet clean, healthy, and productive is no different than investing time and energy into maintaining and improving your house/apartment or neighborhood. We all benefit from clean air, clean water, food production, aesthetic beauty, and all the other perks of living on a healthy earth. Doing your part to conserve natural resources and ensure the vitality of ecosystems doesn’t mean you have to chain yourself to a tree or march on Washington. It’s more about doing little things that don’t greatly impact your lifestyle.

On this Earth Day, please consider whether there are one or two small ways you can help. Start a compost pile in your backyard, buy some native wildflowers for your garden, or take your kids out to a nearby natural area and look for frogs or butterflies. Grow your hair and beard really long, buy a yurt, and move out into the wilderness (I’m kidding, of course – the beard is completely optional.)

Most importantly, please help depoliticize conservation. Investing in the future of our planet and natural resources isn’t something that should be tied to political parties or philosophies. We don’t have to agree on the best path to keep moving in the same direction. Our planet is awfully beautiful, and it is the only we’ve got for now. Thanks for your help, and happy Earth Day.