August actually flew by but it surely was a enjoyable and fascinating month. Along with a full calendar of labor and residential occasions, I made time to discover a number of of my favourite prairies, together with The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Prairies, Niobrara Valley Protect, and our circle of relatives prairie. I caught quite a few sunrises and sunsets, foggy mornings, stormy evenings, and a few vibrant overcast days. It was typically a wrestle to maintain up with my to-do checklist, however my time within the prairie at all times felt rejuvenating, relatively than as one thing that subtracted from my productiveness.
I spent a couple of mornings within the Platte River Prairies. August is usually a very good time for foggy mornings with mild winds, and this 12 months’s model was no exception.
One morning, I spent a number of minutes watching a small spider deconstruct its internet, consuming it because it went. Many spider species will re-make their internet each day, and consuming the previous one is a method to acquire again among the vitamins it takes to create extra silk. This one was working methodically, pulling threads towards her mouth as she circled the net and spiraled inward.
Hover flies are at all times a typical sight on the flowers of grasses (in addition to different wildflowers). Grasses are wind-pollinated, so the hover flies most likely don’t assist the grasses any, however there appears to be loads of pollen to go round, so I doubt they do any severe hurt. Plus, they’re fairly dang cute – particularly once they seize anthers of their entrance legs as they eat.
We’ve had good rain this 12 months, beginning within the early summer season, so most of our prairies are wanting fairly lush. That features my household’s prairie. The realm we grazed hardest final 12 months is essentially the most filled with wildflowers and bugs, however the entire web site seems to be good.
One morning, I finished at our household prairie nicely earlier than dawn. As I used to be scouting round, ready for the solar, I noticed a couple of bees clustered collectively on a flower. That’s common, however I mentally famous the situation in case I wished to return again after the sunshine improved. Shortly after that, I noticed a fair larger group of bees, after which one other. I’d by no means seen so many longhorn bees on the identical flower earlier than, and I noticed related groupings on a minimum of 4 or 5 flowers.
I don’t know find out how to clarify this. Longhorn bees (it regarded like possibly two or three totally different species?) are solitary, which means that females dig their very own nest and work by themselves to assemble meals for his or her eggs. Males don’t have nests, so spend nights outdoors, typically a couple of at a time on a leaf or inside a flower. Seeing this many directly, although, was new to me. I’m wondering if a bunch had not too long ago emerged (from pupae) and I used to be seeing the brand new technology on its first evening, earlier than they’d had an opportunity to disperse (or be eaten by predators)?
Regardless of the clarification, it was fairly nice, and I positively circled again with my digital camera as soon as daylight began to hit these flowers. I needed to work shortly, although, as a result of the mixture of my presence and the heat of the solar prompted the bees to begin flying off fairly shortly.
In the meantime, within the Nebraska Sandhills, it’s been a terrific 12 months for plains sunflowers, certainly one of two annual sunflower species that develop within the state. They’re particularly considerable the place grazing and/or fireplace created some naked floor for germination this spring, however they’re widespread throughout a minimum of the entire japanese portion of the 12 million-acre prairie panorama.
The bounty of sunflowers creates extra than simply considerable magnificence. Sunflowers are very beneficiant with their assets, together with pollen, nectar, and seeds. They don’t cover pollen and nectar inside pods, and although the seeds are in shells, they’re laid out for simple entry.
Along with these assets, sunflower leaves are very nutritious, together with for giant grazers (particularly early within the season) and plenty of invertebrates, together with as the favourite meals for the plains lubber grasshopper. Plus, sunflowers produce extrafloral nectar from pores up and down the vegetation, which attracts hungry ants.
Enormous numbers of annual sunflowers often signifies a short lived drop within the vigor of dominant grasses and different perennial vegetation – from drought, fireplace, grazing, or a mix. Whereas these different vegetation are regathering their energy, sunflowers step up and supply all their considerable assets to the members of the prairie group. Plus, after all, it’s a pleasant factor for photographers.
One night, thunderstorms began forming off to the west of the Niobrara Valley Protect and tracked northeast, offering a chronic lightning present that saved simply sufficient distance from the Protect that I may watch and {photograph} it safely. After darkish, the storms did move instantly over us, however I used to be safely in mattress by then.
In late August, my spectacular spouse, Kim, and a bunch of different robust athletes ran a 50-kilometer race on the paths at Wilson Lake (north-central Kansas). I used to be there as driver and crew member – primarily to say one thing supportive and hand her meals, water, or dry socks when she handed by the help station. More often than not, I used to be free to do my very own factor whereas Kim and a bunch of different human outliers ran up and down rocky hills all day.
It was a cloudy, breezy day, so I wandered all the way down to the sandy banks of the lake the place the wind wasn’t as disruptive for images. I spent loads of time on my stomach, making an attempt to {photograph} invertebrates who had been feeding, searching, or making an attempt to heat up on the open sand each time the solar peeked out from between clouds.
As per regular, I needed to ignore the onlookers who had been making an attempt to determine why a grown man was mendacity in moist sand with a digital camera. The range and exercise of little creatures was nicely price it.
Alongside fringe of the sand, simply earlier than the land rose up into the rocky prairie, I discovered an abundance of marsh-fleabane (Pluchea odorata). It was a really fairly plant, however much more engaging to scads of pollinators than it was to me. I photographed fairly a couple of totally different butterflies, flies, and wasps on and across the plant. Since this has change into an extended publish, I’ll simply share one instance.
It’s exhausting to imagine there are solely about six weeks of this rising season left right here in Nebraska. I spend loads of time outdoors, however I nonetheless really feel like I’ve missed approach an excessive amount of this 12 months and am now operating out of time to see every part that’s taking place. It’s going to be exhausting to focus on any indoor actions in the course of the subsequent month-and-a-half, understanding that whereas I’m caught indoors, prairie species are speeding round making an attempt to do every part they should earlier than frost hits. I needs to be on the market with them!
Okay, gotta go.
