Spring is almost here. I spotted my first butterfly this week (too far away to identify it) and there are a few other insects starting to move around as well. Not much flowering in the prairies yet, though plants are starting to green up, especially where we’ve burned. While I wait for the new season to fully kick into gear, I’m falling back to a popular (to me) theme of “Random Photos from Last Year” to fill the gap. Enjoy.
Anyone know what this insect is? (Other than a hemipteran) I photographed it at our family prairie last summer. It looks predatory to me, but what do I know?
The Niobrara River, flowing through our Niobrara Valley Preserve. This is a stretch of river I don’t photograph very often, but there is a great photo waiting for me in this location. I haven’t quite found it yet, but this photo is heading in the right direction.
This gorgeous wasp was feeding on butterfly milkweed at Lincoln Creek Prairie here in Aurora.
This is a giant blowout at the Niobrara Valley Preserve, but it’s unlike most blowouts in that it has steep bluffs on the north and south sides that have a texture almost like sandstone. We found a burrowing owl nest on the south bank a couple years ago. There’s a great photo waiting for me here too. Someday I’ll find it.
I mainly put that last photo in as a precursor to this one. It was taken at the southeast corner of the big blowout where the sand blows most actively. I’m a sucker for waves of sand. I could spend all day looking at them and never get bored.
The Prairie Ecologist 