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Photo of the Week – September 19, 2013
I was a little surprised last week to find a fledgling meadowlark in the Platte River Prairies. The bird was young enough that it still couldn’t do much more than flutter clumsily away from me as I...
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Bee Goggles
One of the best outcomes from learning a lot about a group of species is that I start to see prairie through their eyes. That perspective has been really valuable for me and has led me to evaluate,...
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Hubbard Fellowship Blog – Hummingbird Moths
A guest post by Anne Stine, one our Hubbard Fellows. All photos by Anne. I adore hummingbirds, and I sometimes bemoan their rarity in my new home here on the Platte. I grew up thinking they were...
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Hubbard Fellowship Blog: Moo-Muration
A guest post by Eliza Perry, one of our Hubbard Fellows. All photos are by Eliza. Giant black clouds of birds have been erupting from cottonwoods everywhere I go the past few days. A huge overhead...
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I Otter Be Happy But I’m Not
Last month, I got a call from a neighbor who lives next to one of our Platte River Prairies. I was a little nervous when I picked up the phone because I never know how a neighbor call will go....
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Hubbard Fellowship Blog: Roundup Time
Guest Post by Eliza Perry, one of our Hubbard Fellows. All photos are by Eliza. Anne and I have been spending a lot of time with bison over the last four weeks, something neither of us ever thought...
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Some Things I’ve Learned Since I Wrote My Book
It took me a long time to decide to write a book on prairie management. One of my worries was that I was learning a tremendous amount each year, and a book captures a moment in time. One of the...
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Photo of the Week – November 28, 2013
Does any animal evoke a stronger sense of prairie than the plains bison? Bison at The Nature Conservancy’s Niobrara Valley Preserve in the sandhills of north-central Nebraska. Click on the image for a...
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Winter Wildlife Food
As we continue to transition into winter, many wildlife species are watching food supplies dwindle around them. Flowers have been done blooming for a long time, and now even their seeds are starting...
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Choices, Choices.
I’m putting together a collection of my favorite photos from 2013 for a “best photos of the year” post similar to the one I did last year about this time. It’s been a tough task, especially when there...
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Best of Prairie Ecologist Photos – 2013
As promised, here are some my favorite photos from 2013. It was really tough to narrow these down to 22 (it was going to be 21, but see below) out of the roughly 1,800 images that were “keepers” from...
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Timelapse Snapshots
One of the great features of timelapse photography is the ability to compress time and see patterns or changes in the landscape we’d otherwise miss (such as daily groundwater fluctuations due to...
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Photo of the Week – December 26, 2013
Last week, I went out to our family prairie to pick up a pile of old steel fence posts. As I began loading the posts into my truck, I noticed a few deer mice scurrying for cover. Although the pile...
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A Prairie Ecologist Holiday Reading List
If you’re like me, this period just before and after the New Year provides a good opportunity to enjoy some quality reading time. Maybe you’ve already got a stack of books or list or blog posts you’re...
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Frozen Bugs (and Beetles)
My family and I spent some time exploring the frozen pond/wetland at our prairie during the holiday break. We even got a couple days of great ice skating weather. My kids had a great time ice skating...
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Bison Good, Cattle Bad??
Among some prairie enthusiasts, there seems to be a perception that plains bison are magical creatures that live in complete harmony with the prairie. They eat grasses but not wildflowers, they float...
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Assessing Prairie Restoration Through the Eyes of Small Mammals – Part 1
We’ve taken another step in the right direction… Over the last several years, we’ve begun to evaluate our prairie restoration work beyond just looking at plant communities. Our primary objective for...
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Photo of the Week – February 13, 2014
When I went for a walk in the fresh snow last week, the temperature was 10 degrees below zero (F) and I didn’t expect to see much evidence of wildlife activity. I was wrong. A hole in the snow gives...
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Hubbard Fellowship Blog – Mystery Tracks in the Snow
This is a guest blog by Eliza Perry, one of our Hubbard Fellows. All photos are by Eliza. Last week I needed to check the fences around one of our properties. I only needed to walk a quarter of it to...
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Photo of the Week – March 6, 2014
As I posted a couple days ago, I spent some time at my favorite wetland earlier this week. It was a cold, but very pleasant morning. The sun was moving in and out of thin clouds, creating attractive...
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