Tag Archives: wildlife

Photos of the Week – August 24, 2026

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This is a great time to visit local prairies here in east-central Nebraska. A lot of the bigger showy wildflowers are in bloom and there’s a lot of insect activity, including a nice boost in monarch butterfly numbers and a lot of sound coming from mature grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids.

Monarch butterflies in recently-restored grassland at our family prairie.
Rosinweed (Silphium integrifolium).

Most grassland nesting birds are done for the season and/or have headed south. The exception is the sedge wren, which is commonly a late nester in this part of the world. We don’t hear them until late July or August, most years. They set up territories and nest in the more tall/dense portions of our prairies here, including both the Platte River Prairies and my family prairie. Last week, though, I found a dickcissel nest with very-recently hatched chicks, which was a real surprise. The parents were apparently very dedicated to getting something out of this season. I wonder how many failed attempts have led them to this point. I wish them good luck!

A dickcissels perching on rosinweed about 15 feet from his (late!) nest full of recently-hatched chicks.
A Woodhouse’s toad at our family prairie.
Sunrise and wavy-leaf thistle (Cirsium undulatum).

On foggy, dewy mornings, my most convenient local photo destination is Lincoln Creek Prairie, right here in town. There have been a lot of those foggy mornings lately, and a lot of photo opportunities. The farm just to the east of my favorite spot is growing soybeans instead of corn this year, which is much nicer in terms of allowing sunrise light to hit the prairie right away.

A yellow garden spider on a foggy morning at Lincoln Creek Prairie.
A derbid planthopper, a species I first learned about during my square meter photography project.
A longhorn bee roosting (comfortably?) on stiff sunflower (Helianthus pauciflorus) at Lincoln Creek.
Another bee waking up from its overnight roost on the same sunflower as above.
A green darner dragonfly on common milkweed at Lincoln Creek Prairie.
A big bush katydid of some kind on a yellowing milkweed plant.
A bush cicada (Megatibicen dorsatus) at Lincoln Creek Prairie.
Dew drops on Canada wildrye (Elymus canadensis).
Cucumber beetle on pitcher sage (Salvia azurea) at Lincoln Creek Prairie.

One recent morning at Lincoln Creek, I found a little digger bee that looked like it had spent the night hanging from a switchgrass flower by its mouth. This isn’t unusual for some native bee species – especially males, who don’t have a nest to retreat to. As I started photographing it, it began using its legs to wipe dew from its body, preparing to fly off. I’ve been trying to take better advantage of the video function on my camera, so after taking some good still photos, I switched to video mode (see the clip below).

Digger bee cleaning dew from itself while clamped to switchgrass.

Last Saturday evening, the wind was calm and there was a little haze near the horizon, so I headed out to a prairie I hadn’t visited for a while at the Deep Well Wildlife Management Area about 15 minutes west of town. It was nice to get out, but I’m guessing most people would not have enjoyed my eventual experience. Showy tick trefoil, aka tickclover (Desmodium canadense) is very abundant at this restored prairie (thanks Bill Whitney), which I knew, but had kind of forgotten about until I started walking. For a while, I tried to avoid it, but eventually gave up because there weren’t any clear paths through the prairie without intercepting it. (see photo below)

Showy tick trefoil (tickclover) seeds.

In addition to the tickclover plants grabbing me as I walked through the tall, dense vegetation, it was also a humid night with no breeze. That lack of breeze was helpful for photography, and there was a lot to photograph, but it also meant there was no help in keeping the clouds of mosquitos at bay. My head net and long-sleeved shirt helped, but weren’t entirely sufficient. It’s weird that I didn’t see anyone else out there…

In addition, the little blue butterflies, damselflies, and drone flies that were all over the place didn’t want to sit still, so I ended up with mostly plant photos. That’s fine, of course, but I was hoping for at least a FEW insect shots. Maybe they were trying to stay away from the mosquitos and tickclover, too.

Pitcher sage in late day light.
Cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) and sunset.
Rosinweed and sunset.

Just prior to writing this post, I spent at least half an hour with a paint scraper getting the seeds off my shirt, pants, socks, and boots, all of which I’d left in the garage after getting home from the Deep Well prairie trip. I think I got most of them. Apologies to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission for the unintended seed harvest without permission.

I did, though, keep those tickclover seeds, and will add them to pile of the other seeds I’ve been harvesting to overseed portions of our family prairie this winter. Sure, I know it’s setting me up for more post-prairie paint scraper time in the future, but the flowers are SO PRETTY!

I’m trying to take full advantage of this terrific time of year for prairie walks. I hope you’re getting similar opportunities.

Photos of the Week – August 12, 2026

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Quick last minute announcement – we are hosting a plant identification/habitat workshop at the Platte River Prairies next Tuesday (9am-2pm). Fore more information or to RSVP, please contact Kate Samuelson at kate.samuelson@tnc.org.

I spent a couple days at the Niobrara Valley Preserve this week. There was a lot to see, as always. Here are some of the highlights.

A bison calf at the Niobrara Valley Preserve this week.

It’s mating season for the bison. During the rut, as it’s called, the herd is as noisy as it ever gets. The sound comes mainly from the big mature bulls who take mating very seriously and spend a lot of time “tending” females. That mostly entails finding females in heat and sticking very close to them, preventing them from merging with the larger herd and keeping other males from getting too close until (they hope) mating ensues. You can get a feel for the sounds of this happening in the video below. (If the video link isn’t active, click on the title of the post to open it online.)

We have two herds on the Preserve. The west herd has a 12,000 acre pasture and the east heard has a 10,000 acre pasture. Between the two, there are around 1,500 to 1,600 animals right now. I was hanging out with the east herd this week.

In that east bison pasture, the bison were very noticeable, of course, but the other big scene stealer was a plant. Annual buckwheat (Eriogonum annuum) is as abundant as I’ve ever seen it and I’m not sure why. It made a terrific white backdrop for photographing the bison herd, but also was attractive on its own – especially with some plains sunflowers (Helianthus petiolaris) mixed in for accents.

Young bison bull with buckwheat and sunflowers.
Annual buckwheat
Buckwheat and sunflowers

Most of this year’s bison calves are getting big and have lost their red color, making them blend into the herd much more than they did a couple months ago. That’s not uniformly true, though – there are a few red calves around that were probably born within the last month or so. It’s not unusual to have a few outliers like that, even though most calves are born in April and May.

Most calves look a lot like this one
But a few are considerably younger and more red.
This calf had some red color left but was definitely transitioning into more standard bison brown.
A calf feeding from mom.
Brown-headed cowbird perched on a bison cow.
A big bull scanning the herd for potential mates and rivals.

The photo below shows a bull, cow, and calf in what you might think is a little family group. They’re not ‘that kind’ of family, though. What’s really happening is that the cow is in heat (ready to mate) and the bull has separated her from the herd a little so he can keep an eye on her and keep rival males from getting too close. The calf is trying to stay with her mom, too, both for food and comfort.

Left to right: Bull, cow, calf.

Monday evening, I drove slowly out to one of the bigger groups of animals in the east bison pasture and parked near where they were hanging out. Over the next hour, the herd very slowly flowed past my truck. I enjoyed watching all the social dynamics and listening to the sounds of the rut. I also took a few short videos with my phone (shown earlier and below) when the animals were right outside my window. I had a to cut a couple of them short, though, because my truck started swaying too much as a young bull scratched its neck and back on my rear bumper. The video below shows a bull licking its flank and the sound gives you an idea of the rasping power of a bison tongue.

All that bison and buckwheat action took place in Sandhills prairie on the south side of the river. On the north side, we have mixed-grass prairie on “harder ground” – sandy soils, but with a little more clay and silt mixed in.

A road cut on a hill north of the river shows the sandy loam soils underneath the mixed-grass prairie.

There’s a lot of overlap in plant species composition between the prairie to the north and south of the river, but also some significant differences. For example, purple, white, and silky prairie clovers are all blooming in the Sandhills right now. On the north, there are a few of each those species, too, but also some big populations of golden and nine-anther prairie clover, which aren’t so much Sandhills plants.

Nine-anther prairie clover (foreground) and mixed-grass prairie.

I poked around in the hills north of the river for a while on Sunday evening and then headed down to the river for sunset. I walked up to the Norden Chute, the big waterfall just upstream of the Norden Bridge that crosses the Niobrara River on our property. This local landmark is accessible to anyone who wants to park in the little lot by the bridge and walk under the bridge to get close. (There is also public fishing available in the same spot.) Because the Chute keeps moving upstream a few feet each year, you might want to come see it fairly soon because when it hits the wider channel, it’s hard to know what it will become.

Arrowhead (Sagittaria sp.) and sunset light
The Norden Chute at sunset.

Please come visit both the Niobrara Valley Preserve and our Platte River Prairies! There are public trails at both sites. And, at both sites, in addition to some very nice interpretive materials at the trailheads, you should really take a look inside the bathrooms. They’re perfectly nice bathrooms, but they also include some murals painted by former Hubbard Fellow Noelle Schumann. Here are some photos from the trailhead bathrooms at the Niobrara Valley Preserve: