Tag Archives: flower

Photo of the Week – September 3, 2015

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Recently, we’ve been seeing some very pretty sunrises and sunsets (and moon rises, for that matter) because of a thin veil of smoke in the sky from the western U.S. wildfires.  That diffused light makes pretty good opportunities for photos, and I’ve been trying to take advantage of those when I can.

Last Saturday, I drove to a nearby town to do some shopping, but took my camera along.  I ended up stopping briefly at a restored prairie on both the way there and back because the light was so nice – even at around noon – and the wind was barely blowing.  Here is a selection of photos from the day.

Sphinx moth. Deep Well Wildlife Management Area.

A sphinx moth feeds on nectar from a tall thistle (Cirsium altissimum). Thistles were abundant in this prairie, as were bumblebees, other bees, butterflies, moths, and many other insects feeding on pollen and nectar from them.  Deep Well Wildlife Management Area, near Phillips, Nebraska.

Rough white lettuce (Prenanthes aspera) Deep Well Wildlife Management Area.

Rough white lettuce (Prenanthes aspera).  This is not a common species in this area, so it was nice to see a healthy population growing in a cropfield-converted-to-prairie.  The site was restored by Prairie Plains Resource Institute and owned/managed by Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

Katydid. Deep Well Wildlife Management Area.

This is a very attractive little katydid (a female because of the ovipositor – the egg-laying tube coming out the back).  However, I couldn’t ever manage to photograph an even more attractive katydid that was colored both bright green and purple.  Gorgeous, but skittish.

Indiangrass. Deep Well Wildlife Management Area.

Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans) was reaching the tail end of its blooming period.   These anthers have lost their bright yellow color and will probably fall soon.

Butterflies. Deep Well Wildlife Management Area.

These eastern-tailed blue butterflies let me get close enough for a photo before flying off (still attached) to a more private location.

Damselfly on monarda. Deep Well Wildlife Management Area.

I had fun watching this damselfly but am still not sure what it was doing.  It was flying up to plants and bumping its “nose” against them repeatedly while moving up and down the stems.  I wonder if it was looking for insects to eat but I’ve never noticed this kind of behavior before.  It would bump plants for 15 or 20 seconds and then find a perch to sit on for a while before starting out again.

Rosinweed (Silphium integrifolium) Deep Well Wildlife Management Area.

Entire-leaf rosinweed (Silphium integrifolium) was done blooming and well into its senescence last weekend.  Summer must be nearly over…  That was quick.

Photo of the Week – July 16, 2015

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Scaly blazingstar (Liatris squarrosa) is just starting to bloom in the Platte River Prairies.  It has beautiful and intricate flowers with very long anthers protruding from its tiny blossoms.  At least it usually does…

Blazing star (Liatris squarrosa) The Nature Conservancy's Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.

Scaly blazingstar (Liatris squarrosa). The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.

I was photographing some blazingstar flowers earlier this week when I saw one with a grasshopper sitting on it.  It sat still long enough for me to get a few photos of it.

Grasshopper on blazing star (Liatris squarrosa) The Nature Conservancy's Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.

A grasshopper standing innocently(?) on top of scaly blazingstar.

Only when I looked the above photo on my computer screen did I notice the absence of most of the long white anthers I’d seen on other flowers.  Surely, I thought, it’s not a coincidence that the grasshopper is present but the anthers are not…?

Grasshopper on blazing star (Liatris squarrosa) The Nature Conservancy's Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.

The grasshopper eating one of the long anthers.

Sure enough, looking back through my other images, I found one of the grasshopper eating an anther.  Caught red-handed!  (So to speak.)

Just because they are called “grass”hoppers doesn’t mean that’s all they eat.  In fact, many grasshoppers eat pollen and other parts of wildflowers.  Some are fairly specialized, while others are generalists in terms of the plant species they feed on.  Even among the grass-feeding grasshoppers, there is great variety in which grass species and which parts of those grasses each species eats.

For the sake of the scaly blazing star (and our seed harvest efforts this year), I hope at least some of the anthers survive uneaten so the plants can make seed.  As more flowers open, maybe their abundance will be more than the grasshoppers can keep up with.  At least in past years, we’ve usually gotten pretty good seed harvests from blazingstar, so I’m not too worried.

Just interested…