Tag Archives: wildflowers

Photos of the Week – May 15, 2026

Posted on by
4

I spent a couple days at the Niobrara Valley Preserve this week. I’ll be back again next week for our plant identification/habitat workshop on Tuesday May 19 (9am-2:30pm). If you’re interested in joining us for that (it’s free!), it’s not too late to sign up. Just email Kate (kate.samuelson@tnc.org) to RSVP. There might even be some housing available on the preserve if you act fast!

Sandhills prairie

The prairie is just waking up in the Sandhills. The dry spring hasn’t helped much, but things are starting to bloom here and there. This week’s warm temperatures are speeding up growth and the weekend shows at least some chances of rain, which would really help. Still, there was plenty to see, even if we had to search a little to find flowers.

Hairy puccoon (Lithospermum carolinense)
Puccoon up close
Wooly locoweed (Oxytropis lambertii)
Great Plains bladder-pod (Physaria ludoviciana)
Bladder-pod up close

Some of the early prairie sedges were already done blooming. These are some of the most abundant plants in the mixed-grass prairie, but often overlooked. They’re easiest to see and identify when they have flowers or, better yet, seed heads.

Spikerush sedge (Carex eleocharis)
Sun sedge (Carex inops)
Sandhills prairie
Puffball fungus
Insect galls on prairie wild rose (Rosa arkansana)
Sandhills prairie all the way to the horizon in the east bison pasture (10,000 acres)
Sandhills prairie with the river bluffs in the background

As the sun was setting Monday night, I climbed a hill to watch the sun and clouds over the river. I was not disappointed. I found a western wallflower in bloom and was able to frame it in front of both the sun and the river by lying down and putting my camera right on the ground. (I wonder what percentage of my life I’ve spent lying on the ground in a prairie? Not enough, I’d argue, but surely much more than most people.)

Sunset over the Niobrara River
Western wallflower at sunset
Western wallflower and sunset
Sunset glow on the river
Pussytoes (Antennaria sp.)
Pussytoes up close
Pussytoes with a bug

Many shrub species are in full bloom at the Preserve right now, including chokecherry and currant, and skunkbush sumac is about ready to open.

Chokecherry blossoms (Prunus virginiana)
Buffalo currant (Ribes aureum)
Buffalo currant

Tuesday morning started with a nice and peaceful a sunrise as one could hope for. Once that sun got up, the wind started showing off a little, which was a little less pleasant, but it’s hard to complain too much when you’re exploring a place like this.

Sunrise over the river
Sunrise
The Niobrara Valley Preserve headquarters

It’ll be fun to see how much changes between this week and next. We’re getting to the time of year where there are new flowers blooming each day, new birds migrating in, new bees emerging from the ground, etc. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll take my camera with me next week, too…

Photos of the Week – May 21, 2025

Posted on by
2

I’m already missing my square meter plot and that whole project, but I’m soldiering on and finding other fun photographic opportunities. It’s been fun to watch the growing season jump into full speed, despite really dry conditions. We’ve gotten some good rain across much of the state this last week or so, but most of the state is still in drought conditions. It’s a good thing prairies are so resilient!

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the last few weeks.

The first several photos below were taken within my 2025 photo project area at my family prairie. Pussytoes (Antennaria neglecta) was going to seed earlier this month and I spent part of a pleasant morning admiring the interplay between the light and those fuzzy seedheads.

Tiny crab spiderling on pussytoes.
Close-up of pussytoes seed head.
Morning light and pussytoes seeds.
More of the same.
Early morning at the Helzer Family Prairie, with coralberry, aka buckbrush (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus) in the foreground. This was not in my photo project area.

The rest of these photos were taken at The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Prairies. The first two come from a wetland restoration effort I led many years ago. We converted a sandpit lake (from sand and gravel dredging) to a shallow wetland with backwater wetlands and a meandering stream. It’s still one of the most gratifying projects I’ve worked on, despite a constant flow of invasive plants coming in from upstream.

Evening light at a restored wetland.
A four-eyed bullfrog staring at me from the wetland I designed. They’re technically invasive here, but since they’re here and there’s not much I can do about it, I can at least appreciate their funny faces.
Ladybug pupa. There were a bunch of these around last week. I don’t know what species they are.

As the sun dropped into haze-filled horizon one evening, I played around with various subjects to put in front of that sun. Here are two of my favorites.

Prairie ragwort (Packera plattensis) and the setting sun.
Long-jawed orbweaver on its web.

I think all of our migratory grassland birds have arrived back in our Platte River Prairies. At least some dragonflies seem to be here, and I’ve heard people are starting to see monarchs in eastern Nebraska, though I’ve not seen my first yet. Temperatures are rising and summer is on the way!