Tag Archives: prairie

Photo of the Week – April 28, 2016

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During a walk in our family prairie last week, I found a spider web spanning the entrance to a badger tunnel.

Spider and web at the entrance of a badger hunting tunnel (where a badger had dug a tunnel to catch a ground squirrel or some other small creature. Helzer family prairie. nebraska.

If you look closely, you can see the spider near the top of the tunnel entrance.

When I pulled in close with my camera, the shadow behind the web and the bright sunlight on the spider contrasted beautifully.

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It might be tempting to think the spider was trying to catch a badger except for three things.  First, that would probably end badly for the spider, and natural selection usually takes care of that kind of thing.  Second, spiders often string webs across any opening that could act as a funnel for flying insects.  A badger hole makes as much sense as any other, I suppose.  Third, this wasn’t a tunnel a badger lived in, just a hole dug while a badger was hunting a ground squirrel or some other small burrowing animal.  Most badger-made tunnels are of that ilk, and if you look closely at them, you can usually see the end of the tunnel within a few feet of the surface.

I do think it’s funny to think about what might happen if a spider hung a web across the opening of an active badger home, though.  I’m imagining a badger emerging from its tunnel in the morning and then hopping around shouting “OOOH!! Ick!  Spider web on my head! Spider web on my head!!”

Photo of the Week – April 15, 2016

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Back in July, I got to photograph flowers and insects at The Nature Conservancy’s Bluestem Prairie in Minnesota.  One of the subjects I enjoyed photographing was a little yellow-flowered plant in the genus Lysimachia.  I don’t know the name of the species (I’m sure someone will tell me what it is, which would be fantastic).

I played around with the background in my Lysimachia photos.  I moved the camera slightly up and down, changing what was visible behind the flowers.  The problem with doing that, of course, is that I had to later decide which version of the photo I liked better.  Or, as I sometimes do, I get lazy and just put multiple versions in a blog post to see if you have a preference.

Lysimachia sp. at The Nature Conservancy's Bluestem Prairie. Version one (a little lower perspective to show a little sky in the background).

Version 1. (a little lower perspective to show a little sky in the background).

Version 2.

Version 2.  (the camera was a little higher so the sky is not visible.)

If you have strong feelings, let me know if you like one or the other better, but don’t feel obligated to encourage my laziness.

And, just for fun, here’s a completely different composition of a different plant of the same species (from the same morning).  I actually like this composition less well, partly from an artistic standpoint, and partly because I just think the two earlier images better represent the way the flowers tend to delicately droop on either side of the plant.

Version 3.

Version 3. (Different plant, same morning)

Someone I know, not-to-be-named, likes the last composition much better than the first two.  That person is wrong, but to be fair to them, I’m including the composition in the post.  I’m sure all of you will agree it’s nice, but not as good as the first two…

Right?