The Prairie Ecologist

This was a really fun week, but it was one jam packed with social interactions. The America’s Grasslands Conference happened just down the road and I gave a few presentations and several tours associated (officially and unofficially) with that. I also had a great time meeting new people and catching up with old ones. By the end of Thursday, though, my social engine was pretty much out of gas (I should probably think about upgrading to a more eco-friendly social engine).

As a result, on Friday morning, I got up and drove down to our family prairie to catch sunrise. I spent most of my time in the 80×80 foot plot there tied to the post-grazing photography project I’m doing this year. It was just the thing to reinvigorate me.

Purple prairie clover (*Dalea purpurea*)

The prairie was full of life and activity, even on a dewy morning. Purple prairie clover is starting to bloom across my project area, adding a lot of color, but also drawing a lot of attention from various invertebrates (more on that below). Yarrow, flax, and daisy fleabane were still in flower, but obviously on the back end of their blooming period. Upright prairie coneflower, hoary vervain, and other wildflowers were also joining the party.

Upright prairie coneflower (*Ratibida columnifera*)

We’ve had good rains lately, so there were mushrooms around, including on manure piles. I was surprised to see what I think are the same species on manure from last season as well as from this season (in areas outside of my photography project area). I guess I’d expected to see mushrooms on fresh dung, but not necessarily on older piles. Or that maybe that the fungal species would differ between young and old piles. I’m not really sure why I thought that, but either way, I was wrong. Look at me – learning new things!

Back to the prairie clover, I saw a few crab spiders hanging around on them, and some drone flies had shaken off the dew and were making the rounds looking for pollen. I only saw one bee, but I assume that’s because the others were waiting for the dew to dry – prairie clover is usually one of the top bee-attracting wildflowers in our prairie when it’s blooming. I’ll go back soon and see what’s happening when the whole prairie isn’t soaking wet.

What I saw most on those prairie clover flowers were little katydid nymphs. They were ubiquitous. Tiny, long-antennaed, grasshopper-like creatures were hanging out and (I think) feeding on the pollen and/or anthers of many of the flowers. (I just had to convince my computer that “antennaed” is a word. It keeps underlining it to highlight the fact that it doesn’t think it’s correct. I even looked up the word to make sure I wasn’t the crazy one. What’s funny, of course, is that I looked it up online, which is a skill you’d think my computer would also have.)

Most of the tiny katydid nymphs were only about 1/4 inch long, but their antennae were several times longer than their bodies. As I’ve done countless times before, I wondered how they managed to move around in the prairie with those things sticking out like that. You’d think they’d get hung up in the vegetation over and over. Can you imagine trying to walk through a forest with 25-foot fiberglass poles stuck to your head? It must be similar. It’s just one more reason to admire katydids, I guess.

There were lots of other invertebrates around, of course, including ladybirds, grasshoppers (large and small), flies, lynx spiders, wolf spiders, funnel-web spiders, and many others. Damselflies were particularly noticeable as I walked carefully through the vegetation. As I’d step, a few would fly a short distance away from my feet and land again. The only way I could get close enough to photograph them was to lie prone on the ground and army crawl slowly toward them, keeping my head low. Even then, of course, only a few let me get close. One of them was distracted (I assume) by the small insect it was feeding on. I never did figure out what it was eating. Initially, I thought mosquito, but looking at the photos later, I’m not sure.

Damselfly and sparkling morning dew drops.

The biggest highlight of the morning was seeing purple coneflower in bloom. This is a species that I’ve only seen a few times at my family prairie, and never in this particular location.

Purple coneflower (*Echinacea angustifolia*)

A couple weeks ago, I spotted two different individuals of purple coneflower and it looked like both were going to bloom. One of them was doing just that on Friday morning, with three flowers in various stages of opening. The mystery now is whether those plants have been hiding there for many years and I just noticed them this year or whether they came in from seed.

I’ve been overseeding the site every year for the last 15 years or so – tossing seed out in the winter where cattle had grazed hardest the previous season. It’s been a slow, gradual process because I don’t have a ton of time to harvest seed. I know I’ve had some purple coneflower in my mix a few times over the years, but definitely not within the last 4-5 years. Either way, it’s pretty fun that the first time I’ve seen them bloom is the year AFTER their part of the prairie experienced a year and a half of heavy grazing (the last half of the 2023 growing season and all of the 2024 season).

Purple coneflower and dotted gayfeather.

After a couple hours of exploring the prairie, I left for home feeling much better. That happens after walking any grassland, but the feelings are especially strong after I leave a prairie with which I have a strong connection.

At work, I have built lots of prairie from the ground up (both harvesting and planting the seed – with help from others, of course). Our family prairie has been under my management for about 20 years now, counting the years I helped my grandmother when she was still around. In both cases, the emotions that come with those personal ties are awfully profound. I know that every plant, every insect, every bird, skunk, mushroom, or other organism I see in those places is responding to a chain of events I helped put in motion through my restoration and/or stewardship work.

I mean – wow. Just wow.

As I said back in early May, I’m spending a lot of my photography time in three 80×80-foot plots this summer. Each plot in part of a prairie that was grazed intensively most or all of last year. I’m hoping to highlight why I enjoy exploring places where the growth of normally-dominant plants (especially grasses) is temporarily suppressed from last year’s grazing.

Space and opportunities are opened for other plant species to flourish for a year or so until those dominant species hit full strength again. Generally, I see all the perennial plants I’m used to seeing, but they’re joined (temporarily) by a flush of short-lived plants as well.

In addition, the habitat structure is unique and interesting – especially as the season progresses. It often resembles a kind of miniature savanna, with wildflowers instead of trees towering over short grasses. It’s a habitat type preferred by many invertebrate and vertebrate wildlife species.

Pussytoes (*Antennaria neglecta*) went to seed in mid May at our family prairie. This is a long-lived rhizomatous plant that definitely enjoys the short habitat structure created by grazing.

Today’s post features the 80×80 plot at my family prairie, where I’m experimenting with the open gate rotational grazing. This is basically a big photo dump from about the last month or so. To make up for the large number of photos, I’ve kept the text to a minimum, but have hopefully included enough to give you some context. There’s a lot happening, and every visit I’ve made has resulted in some terrific photos.

Early in the season, the vegetation was pretty uniformly short. Pussytoes, only 6 to 8 inches tall, towered over the surrounding landscape. By mid-June, though, things have changed, with opportunistic wildflowers like yarrow and daisy fleabane growing more than two feet tall and providing an interesting mix of tall and short vegetation structure. That means animals have lots of choices between open, sunny areas and cool, shady cover.

Yarrow (with fleabane in the background) growing tall, surrounded by short grasses.

Mid-June in the part of our family prairie that was grazed intensively all last season. The orange flags mark the corners of my 80×80 foot plot.

The 80×80 foot plot at our family prairie is located on a slope I believe to be remnant (never plowed) prairie. There have been a lot of wildflower species blooming, and a lot more are getting ready. Many are native, but a few aren’t – though none are invasive or problematic.

Shell-leaf penstemon (*Penstemon grandiflorus*) is a species I’ve seeded into the prairie in recent years (from seed harvested nearby).

False gromwell, aka marbleseed (*Onosmodium molle*).

The flowers of false gromwell are closed at the tip, restricting pollinators to those strong enough to force their way inside and/or those with long tongues.

A lot of daisy fleabane (*Erigeron strigosus*) germinated last year during the grazing and is blooming happily this year before dying at the end of this season.

I’ve paid attention to how much fruit has been produced by ground plum in places that were grazed and ungrazed last year. The grazed areas, including my plot, have way more fruits on the plants than I see in the ungrazed sites. I wonder if that’s because they bloomed more prolifically, were pollinated more, or something else (or, likely, a combination of factors). Either way, it’s a stark difference.

Ground plum, aka buffalo pea (*Astragalus crassicarpus*) fruits.

Silver-leaf scurfpea (*Pediomelum argophyllum*) is a long-lived perennial that seems unaffected by grazing.

Peppergrass (*Lepidium densiflorum*) is a neat little annual that is doing well with the abundant light and low grass competition.

Goatsbeard, aka salsify (*Tragopogon dubius*) is a non-native wildflower I enjoy. It’s short-lived and profits from less competitive grasses.

The non-native legume black medic (*Medicago lupulina*) is one of the big winners in all three of my 80×80 foot plots this year. Next year, it will be drastically less abundant as grasses recover their vigor.

The invasive smooth brome (*Bromus inermis*) is found in pretty much every Nebraska prairie these days, but while it bloomed in my 80×80 plot, its minimal vegetative production showed how little competition it was able to provide in the community this spring.

The abundance of invertebrates is one of my favorite aspects of these post-grazing areas. They seem to be drawn to the combination of sun and shade in close proximity, which allows them to easily thermoregulate. A bonanza of wildflowers also draws a lot of pollinators, and that’ll become even more apparent over the next month or two as prairie clover (a particular favorite of bees) starts blooming.

I’ve photographed three ladybird beetles (ladybugs) in the plot so far this year, including the non-native seven-spotted ladybird and two native species.

Seven-spotted ladybird beetle (non-native)

Convergent ladybird beetle (native) on daisy fleabane, with an aphid, its favorite prey, shown at the top of the photo.

Tiny beetle on stiff goldenrod (*Oligoneuron rigida*).

There have been lots of wolf spiders running around on the bare soil.

There’s lots of patchy bare ground in the post-grazing portion of our prairie this year. That makes for great habitat for many invertebrates. It should also be great for ground-nesting bees. The other day, I saw what I thought was probably the entrance to a small bee’s nest and hung around to see if I could get a photo of the bee coming or going. I did manage to spot and photograph the resident, but it turned out not to be a bee. Instead, it was the larva of a tiger beetle – a group of species whose larva and adult stages both enjoy hunting in areas of bare ground.

Tiger beetle larva ready to hunt. If you click on the photo to get a bigger/clearer version you can get a much better view of its face.

I mentioned daisy fleabane earlier. It’s definitely one of the plant species that has benefitted greatly from last year’s grazing. While many people consider it “weedy” because it’s a biennial, it’s attractive and I’ve enjoyed watching all the diversity and activity taking place on it this spring.

A bug (showing its long mouthpart) hiding behind a flower.

A tiny bug (*Lygus lineolaris*?) feeding on daisy fleabane.

A fly infected by the Entomopthora muscae fungus. Read more here: https://prairieecologist.com/2024/06/25/early-summer-natural-history-stories/

I’ll finish with a barrage of crab spider photos from this site. It’s been a great year for crab spiders at many of the prairies I’ve visited, but they seem particularly abundant here. They’re hanging around on lots of different flowers, hunting the many invertebrates coming to visit those blossoms.