niobrara valley preserve | The Prairie Ecologist

Last weekend, I helped with an event up at our Niobrara Valley Preserve. Neighbors and members of The Nature Conservancy were invited to visit the Preserve, enjoy some home-grown bison burgers, and tour some of the 56,000 acre property. I got to take my two sons up with me, which made the trip even better.

Here are some photos from the weekend.

Richard Egelhoff led a tour of the east bison pasture (10,000 acres). A little light rain didn’t stop us from having a great bounce through the sandhills, and we found the first group of bison about 5 minutes in.

It was overcast and sprinkling off and on through much of the weekend, but the sun popped out just long enough on Saturday morning for me to capture the light hitting this shell-leaf penstemon flower.

Rainwater gathered in the leaves of the shell-leaf penstemon – adding a little extra beauty to these gorgeous plants.

Jocelyn Olney, a graduate student at UNL came and talked to the group about her work tracking greater prairie chickens in the sandhills. She brought a display bird to show how radio transmitters are attached. It was pretty popular with the crowd.

Jocelyn also demonstrated how to find the tags, and my sons both got a chance to try it out. Here, Jocelyn instructs John on the technique.

As he honed in on the transmitter hidden in the grass, John attracted a crowd of supporters.

Got it!

Richard got a chance to try it out too. If you know Richard, you can guess how entertaining that process was.

After lunch, I led a hike up in to the hills. We found all kinds of things to look at, including kangaroo rat burrows, spittle bugs, wildflowers, grasshoppers and katydids, wolf spiders, scenic views, and much more.

After the event ended, my boys and stuck around for another day to explore. We went over to the north side of the river to see how the woodland areas there were recovering from the 2012 drought and wildfires. Most of the ponderosa pine are dead, but the majority of bur oaks are resprouting vigorously from their bases.

After the event ended, my boys and I stuck around for another day to explore. We went over to the north side of the river to see how the woodland areas there were recovering from the 2012 drought and wildfires. Most of the ponderosa pine are (still) dead, but the majority of bur oaks are resprouting vigorously from their bases.

The sun finally popped out Saturday night and the boys and I got to get pretty close to a group of bison. Not quite close enough for unobstructed photos, however. On the other hand, we had better looks at bison than the porcupine we chased through a sumac patch (we were in a vehicle).

The sun finally popped out Saturday night and the boys and I got to drive up pretty close to a group of bison, but not quite close enough for unobstructed photos. On the other hand, we had better looks at bison than the porcupine we chased through a sumac patch (we were in a vehicle).

Sunday morning started with a beautiful infusion of sunshine and scattered clouds. Spiderwort, puccoon, and western wallflower decorated the sandhills nicely. The color of wildflowers and vibrant green vegetation were beautiful reminders of the resilience and recovery of the prairie from the severe drought and wildfire in the summer of 2012.

Pocket gophers play a huge role in the ecology of the prairies at the Niobrara Valley Preserve. Researchers have found that nearly 1/5 of the prairies are turned impacted by gopher mounds in some years.

Hairy puccoon (Lithospermum carolinense) was resplendent in the morning light.

Crab spiders (of course) were waiting for unwary pollinators of the puccoon flowers.

Just before we left, my sons and I appreciated the beauty of this goldsmith beetle that had been hanging around the visitor's center lights the night before. I'd put it in a container to save for the boys to see when they got up, so we released it before we left and it graciously hung around for a few photos.

This goldsmith beetle had been hanging around the visitor’s center lights the night before, so I caught it and put it in a container so the boys could see it when they got up in the morning. Just before we left the Preserve, we released it – and it graciously hung around for a few photos.

We left just before the rain started up again at the Preserve, and got home and into the house just in time to watch a nice soaking rain through the windows there. Thanks to all the staff up at the Niobrara Valley Preserve and everyone else who organized the event.

Regular readers of The Prairie Ecologist are familiar with our timelapse photography project at The Nature Conservancy’s Niobrara Valley Preserve. With the help of Moonshell Media, we set up nine timelapse cameras to capture the recovery of the Preserve from a big wildfire that swept through in 2012.

The cameras are supposed to be taking a photograph every hour during daylight hours to document what happens in front of them. However, during 2013, we had a few issues with the cameras that led them to take photos much more frequently (and then run out of space on the memory card). That led to some gaps in our coverage, but the silver lining is that it also gave us some very nice series of photographs over some two to three hour-long periods.

Twice during those frequently-photographed periods, bison were in the frame. Below are two very short videos made from those photo series.

In the first video, the camera was set to record a blowout area – a site where the sand is destabilized and blown by the wind. Blowouts are generally disliked by sandhills ranchers because they lack forage and tend to spread unless they are excluded from grazing and allowed to “heal”. On the other hand, blowouts are ecologically valuable because of the habitat they provide to a wide range of species including plants (including the federally-listed blowout penstemon), tiger beetles, lizards, and many more. This video shows that blowouts are also attractive to bison. The video runs from approximately 7:30am to 10am on June 28, 2013.

We put one camera high atop a tall windmill tower to capture a landscape view of burned sandhills prairie. During this video, the same herd of bison shown above wanders through the frame during a two and a half hour period on the afternoon of October 8, 2013. As you can see by the color of the vegetation, most plants are in or near dormancy by this time of year, so the bison are picking and choosing what they can find to eat. The bison at the Preserve get themselves through the winter without supplemental feed from staff, so October food is probably pretty attractive compared to what’s available in February…

These short bursts of timelapse video were not the expected product of this project, but have turned out to be some nice bonus coverage. Fortunately, the gaps caused by full memory cards are not long enough to seriously disrupt the bigger story of long-term recovery. I’ll continue to bring you that story as it emerges.

The Prairie Ecologist

Essays, photos, and discussion about prairie ecology, restoration, and management

Tag Archives: niobrara valley preserve

Niobrara Valley Preserve Field Trip

Timelapse Bison Photos