Tag Archives: prairie

Photo of the Week – May 28, 2015

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One difference between using cattle grazing and other grassland management options like fire or mowing is that cattle have brains.  They can decide where they want to go (within our fences) and what they want to eat, and their behavior isn’t always completely predictable.   For example, while we know that cattle will spend more time grazing in the burned patch of a prairie than in unburned areas, it’s always interesting to see what plants they decide to graze on or avoid, and how that changes day to day and season to season.  Overall, their unpredictability is a positive for our management because we build it into our plans.

Cattle joining the photographer for lunch Platte River Prairies.

Curious cattle.  The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Prairies.

Another interesting facet of cattle behavior is their interaction with us when we’re out in the field.  Cattle are often curious and come to investigate what we’re up to – probably because they’re hoping we have something fun to eat with us.  I did some plant community monitoring this week and the cattle in that prairie tagged along for a while.

Hey, what's for lunch?

“Hey, what’s for lunch?  Also, what’s that white thing?  Does it taste good?  Can I lick it?”

They ignored me all morning, but when I stopped to eat my peanut butter sandwich, the cattle happened to be coming to get water nearby, so they checked up on me.  When I finished my lunch and started walking transects again, they followed along just to make sure I wasn’t doing anything that concerned them.  (I wasn’t.)

Vegetation monitoring

Vegetation monitoring with an audience.  Counting species within a plot frame has a different vibe when you’re being watched.

Eventually, they apparently got bored (or hungry) and wandered off, leaving me to work alone.  By myself.

Sigh.

Ants in the Sun

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A couple weeks ago, I was broadcasting seeds across a prairie we’d recently burned.  The sun had just popped out after several days of cool rainy weather, and its warmth felt pretty good.  As I crisscrossed the burned area, I noticed several large ant mounds.  When I looked closely at those mounds, I was surprised at the large number of ants massed on top.

Formica obscuriventris TNC Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.

A few ants found a perch above the mob of ants beneath them on top of a large ant mound.  Formica obscuriventris.   TNC Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.

Because it didn’t appear most of the ants were doing anything other than milling about, I surmised they were probably just enjoying the heat of the sun as I was.  James Trager, who graciously identified the ants for me, supported my guess.  He added that this kind of thermoregulatory behavior is common, and not only warms the individual ants, but also the inside of the mound as those warmer ants go back into the tunnels.

Mound building ants trying to drag a piece of earthworm into the mound.

Mound building ants trying to drag a piece of earthworm into the mound.

Not all the ants were just enjoying the sunshine, however.  At least a few were returning from hunting trips with food for the colony.  The foragers were dragging the food items up the mound and toward multiple tunnel entrances.  Unfortunately, it looked like it was going to be very difficult to get the food past the mob of ants.  In particular, I watched as several ants pulling a piece of earthworm toward the tunnels gave up after trying for several minutes to drag it into the mob.  Other ants periodically tried to pick it up and move it as well, but they also gave up.  I assume the piece of worm made it inside at some point, but I can’t confirm that…

Spider

A spider being carried toward the mound.

 

More food.

More food.

I enjoyed watching the ants, but eventually had to get back to work.  I was trying to help increase the plant diversity of the degraded prairie the ants are living in.  That broader range of plant species should help the ants in several ways, including by attracting a wider selection of insects for the ants to feed on.  I hope so.