Every visit to a prairie is different – partially because the prairie is always changing, and partially because I focus on different aspects or species each time.  This week, I was near Griffith Prairie (owned and managed by my friends at Prairie Plains Resource Institute) when the light coming through the diffused clouds was too much to resist.  I popped over to see what was going on in the grassland…

A stink bug on coralberry (aka buckbrush or Symphoricarpus orbiculatus). Griffith Prairie – Nebraska.

On this particular day, wildflowers were blooming all over the place, but what kept catching my eye were stink bugs.  I don’t know if they were particularly abundant or if I was just paying attention enough to notice how many there were.  Either way, I seemed to see stink bugs on just about every plant species I looked at.  They weren’t all the same kind of stink bug, but I don’t know enough about them to tell for sure how many species I was seeing.

Here are three more photos from that same day.

A stink bug on wavy-leaf thistle (Cirsium undulatum).

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… and a stink bug on leadplant (Amorpha canescens)…

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… and one more, on grass this time.

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