It’s been a while since I’ve posted about my square meter project. Don’t worry – I haven’t abandoned it! I visited the plot frequently through most of October, even as insect activity slowed considerably. There was almost always something moving around, even as November arrived. More importantly, there was always beauty and distraction, both of which were welcome.

Flies must be some of the hardiest creatures on earth. As other insects stopped showing up this fall, flies and a few bugs were the stalwarts. I still can’t tell a lot of fly species apart from each other, so I’m hoping to get some help figuring out how many species I’ve actually photographed this year. I definitely found at least a couple new ones this fall, though, including my one and only robber fly of the project.

In my last square meter project update, I shared a bunch of butterfly milkweed seed photos. Those were all gone by about mid-October, but some of the insects that feed on those seeds stuck around longer. I’m not sure why.

Small milkweed bug nymphs, especially, were still in the plot for a couple weeks after the last seed blew away. As far as I know, those seeds are crucial fuel for the growth and development of those juvenile bugs, so I was surprised the bugs didn’t wander off to other parts of the prairie where there were still seeds available. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to have them around. I was just confused.

Speaking of confused, a big herd of those nymphs decided to take up residence for a while in the curled flag marking the southeast corner of my plot. To be fair, the flag did have a similar shape to a butterfly milkweed pod, but it definitely didn’t have any food inside. Those nymphs were there for a week or two. Maybe it just felt right.

During my first run through this project (2018 – using the same plot), one of the big surprises was the tiny number of grasshoppers I encountered through the year. Six years later, in my second attempt, I’m still not seeing a lot of grasshopper species, but they’ve been a fairly common visitor. This fall, at least one (or several that looked alike) was around pretty much every morning – usually hanging out near the top of a sunflower. I assume it was there to both catch the morning warmth right away and because it was feeding on sunflower seeds.

One morning in late September, I got my first mollusk of the project (including both 2018 and 2024. A slug was slowly (of course, right?) moving around on big bluestem, about a foot off the ground. I photographed it right away, but the light wasn’t great. A couple minutes later, I noticed the light was now hitting that area, so I tried to find the slug again. No luck. I looked for several minutes but couldn’t find any trace of it. I had to laugh at my misplaced confidence that the slug wouldn’t move quickly enough to evade me in just a couple minutes. Shows what I know.

Autumn brought the typical fall colors of yellows, oranges, and browns. People unfamiliar with prairies might not think of grasslands when they imagine fall colors. They should. Maybe there aren’t sugar maples in prairies, but there are plenty of color changes to admire. The common milkweed plant in the corner of my plot never bloomed this year, but provided some nice late season color. Similarly, lead plant, despite its tiny leaflets, was really pretty when it changed from gray-green to orange.

Throughout the project, I’ve spent a lot of time just photographing light, color, and texture. This fall, though, with fewer insects and other creatures moving around, I had even more time to concentrate on the more artistic aspects of the project. Forcing myself to spend so much time looking for photos in a small space might seem like it would constrict creativity. The opposite was true.

Rather than wandering around looking for the kind of photos I usually take, I had to look for whatever opportunities I could find within that square meter. That was a terrific way to expand my artistic mind a little. I’m not saying I took any world-changing photos, but I really enjoyed playing around with what was in front of me.

One of the best reasons to watch the same small set of plants carefully throughout a season is that you see and learn things you’d otherwise miss. One example this year was that I learned that empty butterfly milkweed pods close up when they get wet. Maybe you already knew that, but it was news to me!

The pods in my plot had already opened up to release their seeds. There’s no reason for them to close again once those seeds are gone, right? And yet. The morning after a nice rain, I was startled to see all the pods in my plot tightly closed. A day later, once they’d dried, they were wide open again.

The same phenomenon happened a week or so later, though it rained less and they didn’t close all the way. There must be a stimulus that’s still active in those pods related to moisture. Maybe it’s as simple as the tissue swelling and shrinking when it absorbs moisture. Either way, it was fun to notice.

Seed heads were a big feature of my fall photography in the square meter plot. The shapes and textures of those seed heads were fun to play with, especially when silhouetted against morning and evening skies. They were also the source of a lot of insect activity as bugs and grasshoppers (and others) fed on the seeds.

I’m pretty sure there were visiting birds eating seeds from the plot, but I didn’t ever catch them at it. I did, though, get some photos of a huge flock of grackles that passed over my head several times one day. Since I make my own rules for what counts as being ‘in the plot’, I added grackle to my species list. They were directly above the plot and I got a good photos of them. Works for me.

Now that we’ve had some good hard freezes, I don’t anticipate seeing much for invertebrate activity for a while, but I’ll still stop by now and then. I’ll be especially looking for days with frost or snow, or just interesting light. I’ve already visited on a couple frosty mornings, but neither was as dramatic as I hope to see later this winter.

At this point, I’m planning to continue the project until late April next year to complete a full year. I’ve already given several presentations on the project, though, and am busy trying to get species identified and statistics worked up for the numerical aspects of the work. Currently, I’m confident that I’ve photographed at least 319 species. That’s a pretty astounding number, especially since I only photographed 113 in 2018 and felt pretty good about that!

I’m kind of hoping I can get to 339, just so I can say I tripled my 2018 count. It could happen, especially if I can find someone to help me go through my fly photos. Regardless of that final number, though, I’ve found a tremendous amount of joy in that little plot of land this year. I hadn’t planned to repeat my 2018 attempt, but I’m sure glad I decided to take the plunge this year.

Do you think you can tell a bison-grazed prairie from a cattle-grazed prairie? I bet you can’t.

Bison can be found in many parts of North America’s Great Plains and Midwest landscapes and I’ve been fortunate enough to visit many of those locations. I also work at and visit a lot of sites grazed by cattle. I’ve photographed all of the above. As a result, I can present today’s visual quiz: Bison or Cattle?

There are 12 photos below. Each was taken at a prairie grazed by either cattle or bison. All the sites were either being grazed when the photo was taken or were grazed the previous year. In addition, all the prairies have been under grazing management for many years. Your task is to guess which photos were taken at bison-grazed sites and which were at cattle-grazed sites. If you want to study a little first, you can read this 10-year-old post I wrote about the differences between cattle and bison.

Good luck!

Well, how do you feel about your guesses? Have you recorded them? It’s cheating if you don’t write or mark them down before you get the answers. Otherwise, how will you prove you were right or wrong?

Now’s your chance to go back through them one more time before I give you the answers.

Ready?

Here we go:

I made this as easy for you as I could by separating the photos into two groups. The first 9 photos (#’s1-9) are all cattle-grazed sites. The last three (#’s 10-12) are in bison-grazed sites.

How did you do?

I’m guessing you found this quiz difficult. It was supposed to be. There are a couple takeaways I hope you’ll get from it.

First, bison and cattle are more similar than they are different when it comes to their grazing. Both favor grasses over forbs (broadleaf plants), but forbs make up a significant part of the diet for both cattle and bison. When all else is equal, bison are a little more selective toward grasses than cattle.

The key phrase in that last paragraph, though, is “when all else is equal”. The stocking rate and grazing system being used have much more to do with the results than the species of grazing animal. Both bison and cattle are extremely picky about their food when they’re given the chance.

If you put them in large pastures at moderate stocking densities (animals per acre), both animals will walk around and choose only the plant species (and parts of each plant) they really want. Those diet choices vary across the season, and even day by day. Under higher stocking densities, both cattle and bison have to be less selective and eat what is available.

A second important point is that both bison and cattle can be used to create a wide range of habitat structure while maintaining high plant diversity. In contrast, both of them can be grazed in ways that degrade habitat quality and plant diversity. It’s up to the land managers to put either animal in situations that lead to positive results.

The final point I want to make is that you should always be cautious about reading too much from photos. Photography is a great way to share what’s happening at a site, but you only see what the photographer wants to show you. It’s really important to keep that in mind – with anyone, including me.

In this post, I was very selective about the photos I used to represent the points I was trying to make. I could have shown you photos from both bison and cattle sites that would make it appear that their grazing was doing awful things to those prairies. Similarly, I could have selected only photos that made grazed prairies look fantastic. I did a little of both in this post because I was trying to trick you and make the quiz difficult – and to support the idea that both bison and cattle can be used effectively (or not) for good prairie management. All of the sites shown in this post are well-managed and in good ecological shape.

If you’ve not worked with either cattle or bison, it’s really hard to describe how fascinating it can be to watch grazing animals interact with a prairie. While I’m pretty good at anticipating general patterns of behavior, I’m surprised all the time about the choices both bison and cattle make. I enjoy that, but I also understand how others might find that slight unpredictability frustrating, or even scary.

Grazing doesn’t make sense in all prairies. However, in sites where it’s feasible and fits with land management objectives, grazing – by either cattle or bison – can be a really flexible and dynamic stewardship tactic. And yes, horses, goats, and sheep can all be used effectively too, depending upon what a manager wants to accomplish and how they set up their grazing schemes.

If you take nothing else from this post, I hope you remember this: the results of grazing treatments, regardless of the grazing animal, are determined mostly by stocking rate and grazing system. A smart land manager constantly evaluates and adapts as they go, regardless of whether grazing is involved or not. When they do, good things can happen with bison, cattle, goats, or even gerbils. Gerbils take pretty specialized fences, though.