Prairies are an endless source of fascinating stories. As I’ve explored prairies with my camera this summer, I’ve encountered a lot of those stories – some of which I already knew, some I learned for the first time, and some I can only guess at. Here are a few examples.

The first came at our Niobrara Valley Preserve back in May. I stopped to photograph a large bison wallow that had held water but was now drying up. There was a bunch of little barley (Hordeum pusillum) around the edge and I liked the way the light was passing through the flowers.

As often happens, once I was down on the ground and looking closely, something else caught my eye. There were several plants that had flies with white abdomens perched near their tops. When I got closer, it was obvious the flies were dead. What’s with that??

I switched to my macro lens and immediately saw that the white abdomens weren’t normal. Instead of flies with white abdomens, these were flies that appeared to have something wrapped around their abdomens.

Dead insects clinging to tops of plants often means a fungal infection, so I figured that might be at least part of the explanation. Later investigation online confirmed that.

I’m pretty sure these flies were infected by a fungus in the genus Entomopthera – there are different fungus species within that genus, and each affect different groups of flies. If a fly contacts a fungal spore, the fungus grows into the fly’s body, eventually reaching the brain. That causes something called “summit disease”, in which a fungus drives its host to climb up high and attach itself to a plant by its mouthparts (reinforced by fungal secretions) just before it dies.

In this case, the fungus also breaks through the abdomen and creates the diaper-like structure I’d noticed. If the weather is humid enough, the fungus can produce spores that are carried off by the breeze where some might hit another fly. The elevated position of the dead fly helps the spores fly further. However, male flies are also attracted to female flies that died from the infection, and as they investigate those females, they can pick up spores directly. Later, those infected males can spread spores to other (living) female flies, perpetuating the cycle.

Yowza.

Continuing the morbid tone of this post a little further, I found some more death at Lincoln Creek Prairie last month. I was photographing pools of water captured in the leaves of cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum). The plants are named for the way their leaves wrap fully around their stems and trap water.

Many of the cup plants had dead insects floating in the water they held. I’ve seen this before and have wondered whether the plant gains anything from the death it causes in this way. I’ve not read or found anything that says the plant benefits, but I’d love to know if others have information on this. As far as I can tell, the dead insects are just a morbidly fascinating example of collateral damage. I don’t even know if the plant benefits from the water it catches – maybe that’s extraneous, too?

On a more cheerful front, I was able to find and photograph some yucca moths down in Kansas at the end of May. Kim was running an ultramarathon and I was wandering around a fairly low-diversity old pasture. Amongst the mostly invasive grass-dominated vegetation, I came across a little cluster of three yucca plants that were blooming. Given the isolation of those plants from others, I wondered if the obligate pollinator – the yucca moth – would be present. It was!

I wrote a post long ago about the story of the yucca and its specialist pollinator. It’s an often-used example of mutualism, in which two species each benefit from their interaction. The moth helps the yucca by pollinating it (it’s apparently the only insect that pollinates yucca plants). However, when the moth deposits pollen in the flower’s stigma (the opening that leads to the ovary), it also lays eggs in the same place. When they hatch, the moth larvae feed on the developing yucca seeds, which provide enough nutrition to let the larvae grow and develop.

That’s all well and good, but if the yucca moth lays too many eggs, the larvae will eat all the seeds, leaving the yucca without any potential offspring. There are two factors that help prevent that. First, the moth leaves a scent behind when she leaves eggs, which seems to either prevent egg laying by later moth visitors, or at least reduce the number they lay.

The second factor is the big mystery of this relationship and, as far as I know, has yet to be solved. Yucca plants can apparently sense (?) if enough eggs have been laid that it’s likely none of its seeds will survive. When that happens, the plant will abort that flower, dropping it to the ground and cutting its losses. I’d love to hear an explanation for how the plant makes that decision!

During the same Kansas race, I noticed a bunch of wolf spiders running around in the mowed grass near our campsite. Between Kim’s laps around the pasture, I managed to get some decent spider photos. After I’d photographed several, I was walking back to camp when I noticed one more. It caught my eye because I could just barely see something green below its eyes. My first thought was that I was seeing green fangs, but why would this one have different fangs than all the others I’d been looking at?

I slowly dropped into the prone position and edged my way close enough to focus my macro lens on the spider and realize what I’d seen. It was the head of tiny katydid nymph! Only later, when I got the photos on my larger computer screen, did I see that the entire katydid was there. For a while, I thought I’d seen a wolf spider carrying the head of its victim around like a trophy! Nope, it was just feeding on the katydid like a perfectly normal spider.

Last week, I was back up at the Niobrara Valley Preserve. While walking around in the evening, I noticed something odd on the flower of Scribner’s panicum (Panicum oligosanthes). I didn’t recognize the caterpillar, but later found out from Bugguide.com that it is the wheat head army worm (Dargida diffusa), which feeds on grasses. I didn’t see this one eating anything. It just hung out on the grass flower, but it seems reasonable to expect it might have eaten something after I left. Either way, it was a new species to me, and fun to learn about.

In mid June, I spent a couple days out in the Nebraska panhandle, including at The Nature Conservancy’s Cherry Ranch. I ended up tent camping so I could take advantage of the evening and morning light for photography. I set up my tent in mid-afternoon and didn’t notice the little evening primrose plant just a few feet away. Later in the evening, though, the plant lived up to its name and opened its flowers. After the sun went down, I set up my camera to get a photo of the blossoms in the growing darkness. I placed my camera on a bunched up old towel to get it into the right position for the shot and then used a remote trigger and long exposure to make the photo.

A big highlight of western Nebraska summers is the abundance of common nighthawks. I saw lots of them at Cherry Ranch and, later, at the Niobrara Valley Preserve. While at Cherry Ranch, I photographed several roosting nighthawks, either on fence posts or just sitting on flat rocks.

During my most recent trip to the Niobrara Valley Preserve, I was taking an evening hike north of the river and flushed a nighthawk off the ground toward the top of the rocky slope. It flew awkwardly, which led me to believe it might have gotten up off a nest. I was sort of right.

I found two well-camouflaged eggs sitting directly on the ground. I’m not sure it counts as a nest when a bird doesn’t build any kind of structure to place its eggs in. To be fair, a nest in this context would probably have been more obvious than the eggs by themselves. The recently burned (last December) site had lots of bare ground, and those eggs blended perfectly into that background.

Our family prairie is having a good year. The drought has finally eased and everything is green and lush. On one of my most recent visits, I found a crab spider feeding on a true bug of some kind. That’s not particularly noteworthy – I see crab spiders frequently, and they often have captured prey. In fact, just last weekend, I saw three crab spiders with food within the span of about 10 minutes. One of them had a little grass cicada, which seemed pretty ambitious.

What made this particular spider interesting, though, was that as I photographed it, several little flies showed up. They seemed to be there on purpose, and aggressively present, including sitting on the captured bug itself. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this behavior, but I haven’t yet figured out what’s going on. Are the flies laying eggs on the insect corpse? If so, that’s a pretty great strategy – just hang around a crab spider until it catches and immobilizes an insect and then lay eggs that can later hatch and feed on the remains.

I’d sure love to know if that’s really what’s happening!

The most fun recent sighting I’ve had came thanks to Claire Morrical, one of this year’s Hubbard Fellows. We were exploring the Niobrara Valley Preserve and she spotted some sunflower tortoise beetle larvae feeding on Jerusalem artichoke leaves (a perennial sunflower). I’ve written briefly about these creatures before, including their incredible strategy of waving poop-tipped tails above themselves to ward off predators.

As I was setting up to photograph the larvae, Claire called out again. “Hey,” she said, “I don’t want to interrupt you, but when you get done, come look at this amazing beetle I found over here!”

I quickly photographed the larvae and then walked the short distance to where Claire was admiring a shiny green/gold beetle sitting on another Jerusalem artichoke leaf. Unbelievably, it was an adult sunflower tortoise beetle! I’ve looked for one of these ever since first seeing the larvae a couple years ago, but hadn’t ever found one. Claire found one within seconds of her first larvae sighting! Amazing.

Sunflower tortoise beetles are well-named. This one was sitting flush to the leaf when I first saw it, hiding all its legs and body beneath its hard shell. It’s easy to imagine ants or other predators fruitlessly trying and failing to get past that defense. As I watched, the beetle eventually lifted up slightly, exposing its fuzzy little feet. Wow!

It’s hard to sit inside this time of year, knowing how many stories are playing out in the prairie RIGHT NOW. My square meter project has given me a lot of opportunities to watch lots of stories within a tiny area. Knowing how much happens at that scale makes it almost impossible to imagine what’s all going on across acres and acres of prairie…

Hey – why are you sitting there looking at a screen? Go find some stories!

I promise I’ll cover other topics besides my square meter plot project this year. Today, though, I’m dragging you back to it once again. Rather than wait until the end of the month, I’ve decided to share photos from the first two weeks of June because I’ve already got way more than I can squeeze into a single blog post.

All the photos in this post were taken within my 1×1 meter plot at Lincoln Creek Prairie between June 1 and June 14, 2024. It’s the exact same plot I used during my 2018 project. As a reminder, I’m trying to photograph everything I can within that little plot over the course of the year.

I started this iteration of the project in May. It’s not just a species inventory – I’m photographing everything that I find interesting. For the species count portion, though, I’m only counting what I get good sharp photos of, so I’m not including all the critters – and there are lots of them – that fly, jump, or crawl out of the plot before I can photograph them.

My species count for 2024 is at about 120 species, which has already exceeded the 113 species I photographed in the same plot during all of 2018! I’ve struggled to explain why I’m seeing so many species so fast this year and I have three possible explanations. First, the plot was burned in 2024, but not in 2018, which both makes it easier to see things and probably increased habitat quality for many insects, which make up the vast majority of species I’m finding.

Second, I have new camera gear, including a mirrorless camera (Canon EOS R8) that I trust to shoot with a pretty high ISO number (up to 5000 or 6000) at times to capture photos in low light. That, combined with a Laowa 90mm 2x macro lens is allowing me to get decent images of really tiny creatures I struggled to photograph back in 2018.

Third, though, and probably most important, is that I’m a better observer now than I was at the beginning of my 2018 project. I learned a lot in 2018 about how to look closely and patiently at a small area of prairie. Even more, I became inspired by the possibilities of this project and the kind of diversity that can be found. In 2018, I didn’t spent a lot of time poking around in May and early June because the big wildflowers hadn’t started blooming yet. That is a mistake I’m not making this year!

While I’m definitely focused on finding species I’ve not yet photographed this year, I really am taking the time to find beauty as well. Rain drops and dew drops have captured my attention many times, and I’ve enjoyed trying different compositions with them. I’ve also tried to photograph insects and plants in creative and interesting ways, rather than just documenting their presence. The seven spotted ladybug photo below is an example of that. I’d already gotten several identifiable photos of the species, but really liked the way its surroundings were lit up the other day and photographed it again!

The Asian lady beetle below was a new species for 2024. I’d expected to see it earlier, actually, since I’ve already captured photos of a few other ladybug species. Ladybugs, lady beetles, and ladybirds, by the way, are equivalent names that refer to beetles in the Coccinellidae family.

I’d captured a photo of the red milkweed beetle, aka longhorn milkweed beetle back in May, but I still followed another one with my camera as it moved from grass to the adjacent butterfly milkweed plant on the morning of June 9. It was nearly two hours after sunrise, and the light was getting a little too bright, but the beetle eventually settled onto the backside of a milkweed leaf in a spot where the leaf diffused much of the light and a little direct light illuminated its face very nicely.

I’ve seen a damsel bug (a small predator) multiple times. I like to think it’s the same individual, but I know that’s unlikely. Unlikely and impossible aren’t the same thing, though, so I greet it each time as if we know each other. Maybe that’s why it has been relatively accommodating as I’ve tried to stick my lens in its face.

Likewise, there’s a skinny green plant bug I’ve seen several times that has made itself available for portraits. I haven’t yet seen it feeding on any plants, but I’m hoping to.

There are some tiny black flea beetles hanging around – mostly on Maximilian sunflower leaves. After the first two or three times I’d seen them, I finally started to catch them actually feeding on those sunflower leaves. They’re not doing much damage, but I enjoy checking in on how much they’ve eaten between my visits.

I found two beetles on the same day that I’m pretty sure are two different species of broad-nosed weevils. The first was about half the size of a lead plant leaflet (a nice common measure of length I think we should use more often). The second was at least twice as big and had different markings, convincing me it was not the same weevil species. My confidence is high, but not high enough that I’d be shocked if someone corrects me.

So far, I’m not sure I’ve seen more than one grasshopper species. I sent a few photos to a friend and she agreed that all of those seemed to show the same species. Last week, I found a grasshopper nymph sitting next to a recently-shed exoskeleton. Did that nymph come from that exoskeleton when it molted? I’d like to think so, but I didn’t see it happen.

I’m up to three species of bees already, which I feel pretty good about since no wildflowers have yet bloomed. During the last two weeks, I’ve photographed a small carpenter bee and a green metallic sweat bee. The sweat bee had pollen on her legs, so she must have been feeding on flowers nearby. The small carpenter bee was a male, so maybe there are nesting females nearby?

By the way, “small carpenter bee” is not just a description of size – it’s the common name for solitary bee species in the genus Ceratina, as opposed to the carpenter bees you might be thinking of, which are much larger and in the genus Xylocopa. Some of the big carpenter bees look a lot like shiny bumble bees, but the little ones look much more like sweat bees. The little carpenter bees make nests in hollow plant stems (or by hollowing out plant stems) and females generally work by themselves to build and provision those nests.

Flies are the most diverse group of organisms on my list so far, with about 25 different species. I’m trying to be conservative as I decide which species may or may not be the same. Hopefully, that means I actually have photos of more than 25 species, rather than fewer. Bugguide.net experts have been helpful, but often just tell me what family or subfamily a photographed fly is in. That’s not their fault – I’m not always giving them photos that show the best characteristics. Plus, scientists think there are about 61,000 species of fly in North America, many of them not yet named.

Hover flies are frequent visitors to the plot, though there hasn’t been a lot of pollen for them to feed on yet. I did catch one feeding on sedge pollen, but I’m guessing they’re looking forward to when the lead plant starts blooming. In the meantime, I’ve managed a variety of photos of what I think is one species of hover fly during the last couple weeks.

I’m still amazed that the shiny, graceful long-legged flies I see are actually predators. (Long-legged fly is the name of the fly, not just a description.) I haven’t seen one eating something yet this year, but I have seen it previously. Long-legged flies are often in my plot, usually sitting in the sun on a leaf, so I’m hoping I can get a photo of one with prey sometime.

While I haven’t gotten a photo of long-legged flies acting like a predator, I did get some photos of a different predatory fly. It was another one I wouldn’t have guessed was a predator upon first glance. The photo below shows the fly – a tiger fly of some kind (there are multiple species.

The tiger fly I photographed with its prey was feeding on a smaller fly. I’m pretty sure the smaller fly is a species I’ve already photographed – one with a white abdomen – but I didn’t get a great angle to confirm that. As I understand it, there is one common tiger fly that is a non-native species in North America and a bunch of native species. I’d love to know which I have.

Bugguide.net has been helpful throughout this project, but rose to the occasion again with the photo below. I figured it was some kind of Dipteran (fly) but couldn’t narrow it down beyond that. Within an hour of submitting the photo to Bugguide, I heard back that it was a gall midge. I don’t know much about gall midges, other than their larvae tend to live in galls and feed on plant tissue, but I’m going to try to learn more.

I, like the hover flies, am eagerly anticipating the blooming of lead plant. In the meantime, I’m having fun photographing the leaves. I caught a nice dewy morning, recently, and got a shot I really liked. I’ve seen a butterfly egg (as yet unidentified to species) on a lead plant leaf, but now have a new mystery. I have no idea what the shiny red sphere is that I found attached to a leaf. Help?

I’ve been seeing green lacewing eggs pretty often. They’re small enough that I don’t know if new ones are appearing or if I’m just finding eggs I’ve previously overlooked. Either way, given the number of eggs, I’ve been hoping to see some lacewing larvae and finally got my wish last week.

I’ve seen a long-jawed orbweaver in the plot several times, including twice on a web. The most recent one (below) was really tricky to photograph because the web was built deep in the increasingly dense vegetation. I had to very slowly and stealthily nose my camera lens between sunflower stems to get the shot I wanted. I also had to time the photo to catch the light just right because the sunflowers were waving in the breeze, creating alternating shadow and light patterns across the spider. Whew! This is hard work!

I’m seeing lots of crab spiders, which I love, but that’s another group of creatures that I imagine will be happy when some of the flowers start blooming. I’ve not seen crab spiders with prey yet, but one of them came really close to catching a stilt bug the other day. I’m not sure if it missed or changed its mind at the last minute. It made a lunge, but didn’t grab the lanky little insect.

I’m hoping to have butterfly milkweed and lead plant flowers within the next couple weeks. If Kim thinks I’ve been visiting the plot a lot up until now (and I have), just wait! I’m not losing steam at all, and big showy flowers will just add more coal to my engine – or something. How about that for a dated reference? Anyway, the point is, I’m having a great time with this project. I hope you are too.