Tag Archives: prairie

Yet Another Intentional and Valuable Post

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People sometimes ask me if I have a certain number of posts I’m supposed to write in a year. A quota, if you will. I always tell them that if that were the case, you’d probably know because I’d occasionally post something that was clearly a space-filler. A post that didn’t really serve any purpose other than to be a post that counted toward a quota.

Instead, I hope you’ve noticed that all my posts have a clear purpose. Sometimes, I’m sharing a story of something I’ve seen or learned recently. Other times, I’m trying to synthesize information from my own experiences and/or those of others that I think might be helpful to the kind of people that read this blog. And, of course, sometimes I just share photos that I’ve taken recently with the hope that they’ll help inspire people to appreciate the prairies that I love.

If I was writing on deadline or to fulfill an obligation to produce a certain number of posts each year, I’d probably feel pressure to occasionally put out a post that didn’t really accomplish any of those purposes. A post that seemed thrown together without a coherent or logical flow. As intelligent readers, I think you’d know if that was happening.

Did you know robber flies will attack and feed on other robber flies?

Tangentially, I recently heard a comedian talking about writing sketches to entertain themselves, as opposed to writing content they thought would make other people laugh. I, personally, think that’s ludicrous. As an artist or entertainer, I think your first responsibility should be to the audience. Creating something just to make yourself laugh is fine, but you don’t have to share that with the world. I think my kids would agree with that. In fact, I know they would.

Back to the point, I’m always very intentional about the posts I write. I know I have an obligation to many people who follow this blog. I’ve been writing this blog for more than 15 years now (!!) and its continued growth is, at least in part, because I take my responsibility seriously.

By the way, did you know this is a blog? That’s weird, right? That makes me a blogger and you a blog reader. I’m not sure which is more embarrassing. I won’t tell if you won’t.

I think a lot of people have assumed that this is just a newsletter I send out via email. That’s definitely more respectable than a blog, so let’s just go with that. Thank you to everyone for reading my newsletter.

Wolf spider burrows are often about the diameter of a coin just smaller than a nickel but bigger than a dime. I wish there was a coin of that size…

Speaking of different forms of communication, social media continues to be an important way to share content. I have struggled to figure out how to use platforms like Instagram productively (@prairieecologist, if you’re interested). Having said that, I now have more followers on Instagram than I have readers of this, um, newsletter. Maybe it’s time I took social media as seriously as I take my responsibility to provide consistent, useful content here.

Well, I’ve probably given you enough helpful information for one post, so I’ll let you get back to your day now.  To be clear, I’m not ending this post just because I’ve just hit 500 words. No one is watching to make sure I hit any minimum word count, just as they’re not counting the number of posts I write in a year. I hope this helps quell any rumors to that effect.

Photos of the Week – November 14, 2025

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I mean, you knew this was coming, right? If you’re on any social media platforms, you’ve already seen enough northern lights photos this week to last a lifetime. Well, guess what? I took some too. Then I waited until everyone was already saturated with images from other sources before dumping mine out there into the world. It’s a terrible marketing strategy.

So, feel free to ignore this post and move on to more important things in your life. You know, things like deciding whether that white powdery substance on the bread is mold or flour. No one knows. It’s impossible to know.

Stiff goldenrod and the Aurora Borealis, just south of Aurora, Nebraska

On the first night of the colorful sky lights (Tuesday), I went down to our family pasture at about 10pm and stayed until midnight. The show got less interesting as the night went on, but it was fun to wander around the prairie in the dark and look for interesting shapes to silhouette in front of the colors.

Indiangrass; Landscape format

One particular clump (clone) of Indiangrass really caught my eye. I liked it so much I photographed it in both landscape and portrait format and then circled back to it 15 or 20 minutes later and tried again.

The biggest challenge with this kind of silhouette photography was focusing. I had my camera low to the ground and was shining a flashlight on the plants I wanted in focus so I could see them through the camera and manually focus on them. I got it right about 50% of the time, which meant I took a lot of photos I can’t use, but since I anticipated that, I got multiple tries in on each composition and mostly came out ok.

Indiangrass: Portrait format.
Stiff sunflower
Stiff goldenrod again
Indiangrass again

On Wednesday, there were clouds in the area and the forecast for good northern lights visibility was uncertain. I decided to chance it and made a run out to the Platte River Prairies and my favorite restored wetland to see if I could get some reflections in the water. Right when I arrived, the show was terrific, but it didn’t last long.

Beaver pond and eagle tree.

Also, the beavers had done a lot of work since I’d last walked around that wetland. Stumbling about in the dark, I quickly found out that most of my favorite photography spots were under water. I made it work, though I startled several mallards into flight as I blundered through the tall vegetation and shallow ponded water, trying to find good vantage points for photos.

The ol’ eagle tree was a dependable focal point, as always. Of course, no one but me calls it the eagle tree because no one here has been around long enough to remember the bald eagle nest that used to be there.

Plus, of course, the nest wasn’t actually in the tree I’m talking about. It was in the tree right next to it, but during the restoration project (which included tree removal), we left both trees standing so as not to disturb the nest. When the tree with the actual nest fell down (15 years ago?), I kept referring to the other one as the eagle tree anyway. It’s weird that no one else calls it that.

A different part of the same beaver pond. It all seemed like one big beaver pond, actually.

Anyway, I only got 10 or 15 minutes of good northern lights on Wednesday before the clouds spoiled things, but it was still worth the trip. Just listening to owls hoot and ducks grumble while I splashed around in the dark would have been enough, actually. The brief sky spectacular was a really nice bonus.

Fading northern lights, but good stars! (And the glow of two nearby towns in the distance)

It sounds like it might be another decade or more before we get a similar show, especially this far south. I hope you got your fill of northern lights photos, if not the opportunity to see them in person.