Ask The Prairie Ecologist (Again)

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I’ll get to the Ask The Prairie Ecologist part of this post below. First, though...

One of the best things about this blog is that it has connected me to amazing people and stories all over the globe. The most recent example came last weekend, when I got an email from Sri Harsha in Gundmi, India. He reached out because he had recently started a project to document all the insects he could photograph in a square meter near his house.

My square meter plot in June, 2024

Sri said that as he was starting his project, he did an online search and found my square meter project, which helped him solidify his ideas. When he first wrote me, he was 38 days into his effort, and was visiting his plot every day. He sent me the website he’s using to document his work and I instantly fell in love with his work. As of today, Sri is on day 44 and has already documented 172 insect species. He’s clearly going to blow my species total out of the water!

We emailed back and forth a little and Sri told me that he’s not a trained biologist (he works with computers and information technology) but that he is really curious about the natural world and uses photography as a way to explore and see animals up close. Back in 2017/18, Sri created a showcase of the wildlife in the rice paddies and woodlands around his village. Now he’s focusing on a single square meter of land and is creating weekly posts to update his progress. The posts are short, pithy, and fun to read.

Please take a look at Sri’s work! You can leave him comments and encouragement, if you like, at this link. I think you’ll agree that it is a terrific project and a wonderful example of what curiosity and commitment can lead to.

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ASK THE PRAIRIE ECOLOGIST!

We’ve done this several times, but it’s been a while. I’d love to hear from you. What questions do you have about prairie ecology, restoration, or management? The questions can be simple or complex, short or long. Just ask them in the comments section at the bottom of this post.

I can’t promise to answer them all, but I do promise to read them all and I’ll try to feature my answers to some of them in future posts – especially those that I think will be interesting to a large number of people. With others, I’ll just reply directly to your comment. Feel free to include your name, or not, as you prefer.

Please remember that my knowledge of prairies is nowhere close to complete, so while I’ll do my best, there will certainly be lots of questions I won’t have good answers to. When I can, I’ll try to suggest resources or people who might be better than me at providing what you’re looking for.

So, here we go! Write your questions in the comments below. Even if you don’t have a question, you might find it interesting to browse through the questions others ask and see what kinds of answers I’ve come up with (and feel free to chime in if you have applicable knowledge).

Thank you for your participation. As I repeatedly say, I couldn’t be more grateful to all of you who read this blog. Your comments and questions have consistently been a source of inspiration to me – not just the content of the comments, but also the fact that they are almost always constructive, polite, and curiosity-based. I really, really appreciate that.

Just for fun, and because Sri inspired me to think about my square meter project again, here are a few photos from my project back in 2024.

Indiangrass flowers.
A morning dew drop with Maximilian sunflowers behind it.
A lynx spider with a captured long-legged fly.
Woodland meadow katydid.
Butterfly milkweed seeds.

Photos of the Week – February 5, 2026

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I’m very grateful to have been featured in a short (6 1/2 minutes) video on Nebraska Public Media’s Nebraska Stories. A terrific film crew spent two days with me at the Niobrara Valley Preserve and the final product came out really beautifully. I hope you enjoy it. (If you’re reading this in an email, either click on the title of the post to make the video active or just click on this link.) Huge thanks to Kelly Rush, Tiffany Johanson, and Emily Kreutz with Nebraska Public Media.

In other news, I did my best to take advantage of the brief spell of frigid temperatures we had recently. It’s over now, though, and I went to the grocery store in a t-shirt today. That’s not winter! Where’s the snow, ice, and ice? It has all melted away.

I had two great mornings in late January, though, with some gorgeous frost and ice. The first was at my ol’ dependable restored wetland and the second was out on the frozen surface of the Platte River. I’ve been waiting all winter for the temperatures to stay cold long enough to make some solid ice for me to walk out on. Right before the cold spell ended, I finally got that chance.

There are a lot of photos below, but if you make it to the end of this irresponsibly long post, there is a fun little surprise at the end.

Here are the photos from the frosty wetland.

There was a little open water coming across one of the many beaver dams at the wetland. I spent some time with an icy branch sticking out over the water.

Now, here are the photos from the river. It was well below zero (F) on this morning and I almost stayed home because it looked like it might be too cloudy. As it happened, I had about 10 minutes of light while the sun rose up through the thin band of open space between the horizon and the clouds. I scrambled around as much as I could during that short window.

Once the sun went behind the clouds, I wandered around for maybe 45 minutes without taking any photos – just enjoying the day. Eventually, the sun rose high enough and gained enough intensity that I had enough light (barely) to work with. It was still pretty dark, but that’s just mood lighting, right?

Ok, here’s the fun part I promised. At least, I hope you think it’s fun. I found a couple interesting patterns in the ice and thought I’d check to see if you see what I see.

Mini Quiz Question #1: In the photo above, look at the creature in the center of the image with its head on the left side of its body. See it? Ok. What direction is that creature looking?

A. It’s clearly looking to the right. Is it Woodstock from the Peanuts cartoons?

B. It’s looking to the left. Also, I’m pretty sure it’s a larval salamander of some kind.

C. Are you talking about an actual creature or just something your imagination sees in the ice?

D. It can be whatever you think. Also, it might be Woodstock even if it’s looking to the left?

E. Someone made a cartoon about peanuts??

Mini Quiz Question #2: How angry is the bird in the photo above?

A. So angry. Wow. I wouldn’t want to meet that bird in a dark alley.

B. You’re talking about the bird looking to the left with the slanty eye? It does look pretty mad, but sometimes it’s hard to know. It might just be discussing a serious topic.

C. Again, do you really see a bird? I just see ice.

D. That’s no bird. The proportions are all wrong. Well, maybe a cartoon bird, I guess.

E. There’s no bird in that photo. That’s clearly a ___________. (Feel free to tell me what it is in the comments.)