The Prairie Ecologist

Well, the temperatures have swung back up and our snow is rapidly melting. I only managed a couple brief photography jaunts during the cold snap/snow, but they were enjoyable. Below is my favorite photo from this most recent snow.

Partially melted/refrozen snow crystals at Gjerloff Prairie.

Last week, I was honored to be a guest speaker at the Illinois Association of Conservation Districts Conference at Starved Rock State Park. It was great to catch up with some old friends and meet more. I was really impressed with the energy of the group and with the creativity and thoughtfulness being applied to conservation challenges.

On the first morning of the conference, we took a quick hike up a couple canyons in the park. We got to admire both water-carved sandstone formations and frozen waterfalls. The bigger of the frozen falls, unfortunately, had broken off, but was still impressive. A smaller version in the next canyon, though, was still intact and made for some fun photography.

Ice and embedded leaves near the waterfall.

We got back to Nebraska Friday night – just in time for me to get out for a Saturday morning photography hike before temperatures rose and started to melt all the snow. I got up early enough Saturday that I was at Gjerloff Prairie before sunrise. I had the place to myself, and only a cross country skier the previous day had made tracks through the new snow before I arrived. (Well, not counting the birds, deer, coyotes, mice, etc.)

Pre-sunrise photo of grasses and the marks they’d made in the snow during the previous breezy day.

It was a pleasant morning for a hike, despite the cold temperature (about 10 degrees F). The evidence of breezes during the two previous days were everywhere – especially in the way grasses had traced patterns in the snow – but there was only a gentle breath of wind while I walked.

The wind had moved the grasses around enough that they’d carved out circles at their bases.

Snow crystals around a slight gap in the snow surface.

Numerous birds and mice had been out feeding and had left their tracks all over. They also left some of their food scattered about. One patch of smooth sumac had clearly been worked over by one or more mice. It/they had climbed up and torn quite a few fruits from the top of the shrubs. Quite a few were still in the snow when I arrived, looking like bright red beads. There were also a lot of big bluestem seeds scattered around where birds had clearly been foraging on grasses.

A fruit of smooth sumac, dropped by a foraging mouse.

Big bluestem seeds below where birds had been feeding.

Marks made by grass leaves bouncing around in the wind during the previous day.

Mouse trails (see the tail prints?) leading from and back to a tunnel beneath the grass and snow.

By the time I finished my hike, the temperature had risen 10 degrees and there was the distinct feel of a day that was going to get much warmer (which it did). It’s still February, so maybe we’ll get another shot of snow before the winter ends? I sure hope so.

We got snow!

It’s been a really dry winter, but we finally picked up a few inches of snow (3-5 across the areas I’ve visited this week). I had to miss a conference I’d been looking forward to, but we really needed the moisture. The bitterly cold temperatures have made the snow a little less fun for most people, but I’ve bundled up a few times and have had some really pleasant hikes.

Those low temperatures seem to be tamping down the activity of many smaller creatures I hoped to see tracks of. I’ve only seen a few sets of mouse tracks and those didn’t look like they went very far. In most cases, my amateur tracking told me that the mice popped their heads out of the snow, hopped a few feet and then quickly dove back down into the snow to wait for better days. Perfectly sensible.

Since there weren’t many tracks to follow around, I spent a lot of time looking for interesting patterns and textures to photograph. I found plenty to look at in Lincoln Creek Prairie right here in Aurora.

Yesterday afternoon, I was at the Platte River Prairies to meet with our Hubbard Fellows. Afterward, I wandered through the snow out there, enjoying the late day sunshine and low wind speeds. I found a few tracks of mice, along with deer, rabbits and coyotes, but most of the tracks were from songbirds. I’m certainly not good enough to tell you what bird species they were, but I’m guessing meadowlark, tree sparrow, or horned larks are all good possibilities. No birds popped up in front of me to give me clues.

Bird tracks that sank a little further into the snow

Whenever it snows a few inches (less than 6 or 8), I tend to look for prairies that were grazed or mowed the previous year. That gets me out of dense vegetation and into broad areas with scattered plants sticking up above the snow. Especially when the sun is out, that limits the number of shadows I have to deal with and makes it easier to isolate individual plants, shadows, or textures.

Buffalo bur pods (and a few dislodged seeds)

It appears we’ll get to keep this snow around for a while and might even get a little more early next week. One great thing about snow is that it completely transforms what sites look like, so even places I’ve hiked frequently this winter are suddenly completely different and even more interesting to explore. If you’re lucky enough to have snow on the ground where you’re at, I hope you’re getting some enjoyment out of it.

The Prairie Ecologist

Essays, photos, and discussion about prairie ecology, restoration, and management

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