Tuesday of this week was a cloudy day but the clouds thinned a little in the afternoon and made it worth carrying my camera around at the Platte River Prairies. Here are a bunch of photos from Tuesday afternoon, squeezed in amongst other work projects that day.
The first series all come from one particularly nice-looking New England aster in a restored prairie we planted in 2016. New England aster is on the western end of its range here, but does well were we’ve planted it in some of our lowland floodplain prairies. We’re glad to have it, and so are the myriad pollinator insects drawn to its flowers. I camped out on this aster for 15 or 20 minutes and just photographed everything I could that came to it.
The checkered white below was on a different New England aster that was growing near the first.
There are lots of other flowers blooming right now besides New England aster, of course. Tall thistle (Cirsium altissimum) is also attracting a lot of pollinator attention, especially from butterflies and bumble bees.
Pitcher sage is also still blooming, though many plants are quickly winding down their flowering. Monarchs and bumble bees are big fans of these blue flowers, but so are lots of other species, including numerous bees and moths.
Prairie gentian, aka lisianthus or Texas bluebell, normally blooms much earlier in the season than now, but I found one blossom that was still open late this year. A female katydid who had lost an antenna found the same flower.
Apparently, if you dry the leaves of sneezeweed and snort them up your nose, it’ll make you sneeze. I don’t doubt that, but I bet there are a lot of other plants that would give you a similar result if you jammed them into your nasal cavity. I’m not saying sneezeweed doesn’t have special characteristics re: sneezing. I’m just saying that, in a pinch, I bet there are substitutes available. If one pinch doesn’t do it, try another.
I’m kidding. Please don’t stuff plant leaves up your nose without first consulting a doctor. And then only if the doctor says yes.
A few years ago, I wrote about the various species of invertebrate that can be found living inside a goldenrod stem gall. Depending on circumstances, there may be a fly, a wasp, or a beetle, and potentially all three of them could be present. The big question is – which one will emerge at the end of the winter?
Most common milkweed plants have made seed by this time of year, and many are starting to release them into the air. Regardless, there are still some milkweed specialists feeding on the plants. One little patch of milkweed near our shop at the Platte River Prairies had both a monarch caterpillar and a cluster of large milkweed bug kids and adults.
Central Platte River flows are typically low by the end of summer, as Rocky Mountain snowmelt has largely run its course. This year, a dearth of snow in the mountains meant even less water coming down the river. And, of course, there are lots of other factors that determine how much water is in the river at any particular time, including reservoirs, withdrawals for irrigation and drinking water, hydropower releases, and habitat-focused water management.
The river is still flowing though, which doesn’t happen every year. Low flows provide a terrific opportunity to see the gorgeous patterns created by a braided river channel. In the first photo below, you can also see the results of some sandbar disking (bottom right) to remove vegetation before next spring’s big migration of cranes, ducks, geese, and shorebirds – most of whom prefer to roost in broad open channels. To the right of the river, you can see some of the grasslands included in The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Prairies.
I find it mesmerizing to watch water flow past me. Even more mesmerizing, though, is a slow pan of the river from above, where you can see the braided channels as they intertwine and intersect. Here’s a video taken from my drone that shows just that. If the video doesn’t play when you click on it, open this post online by clicking on the title at the top. That should activate the video link.
Autumn is here! (In the northern hemisphere, anyway.) It’s a terrific time to get out and look for migratory birds and insects, to catch the last suite of late season wildflowers in bloom, and to admire the many seed dispersal strategies of the plants who have already wrapped up their flowering season. Enjoy!
