Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar
Friday, May 7, 2010
This Week in Iowa Nature
Arbor Day is the last Friday in April. Plant a tree or shrub for wildlife cover and food.
Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar
Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar
Monday, May 3, 2010
Plant of the Week
Galium species
other common names: cleavers, catchweed, goosegrass, burrhead, gripgrass, loveman, scratchweed, sweethearts, love-me plant, beggar’s lice, fleaweed, inchweed, pigtails, poor robin
Galium: from Greek for “milk,” referring to the use of some species to curdle milk for cheesemaking
Species: There are at least 25 species of Galium, some of which are found in many different parts of the world. Two bedstraws are fairly common on Midwest prairies: northern bedstraw, Galium boreale (shown), and cleavers, G. aparine.
Madder family: Rubiaceae
Photo: Galium boreale L.
Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition
Monday, April 26, 2010
Plant of the Week
Stipa spartea Trin.
scientific name, 2008: Hesperostipa spartea (Trin.) Barkworth
other common names: needle-and-thread, needle grass (also applied to other species)
Stipa: from Greek stype for “tow,” referring to the awns, which somewhat resemble the fibers of jute or flax when they are ready for spinning
Spartea: from Latin, meaning “broomlike”
Grass family: Poaceae (Gramineae)
Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
An Interview with Chris Helzer: Part 3
What advice would you give to beginning conservationists? What are the particular challenges of being a conservationist in the Midwest?
Learn how to identify plants. And insects, if you can. Evaluating how well a prairie, or any other natural system, is responding to management is very difficult if you can’t even identify at least the major plant and insect species. Birds and other vertebrates are relatively easy to learn, but they are relatively poor indicators of whether or not management strategies are benefitting the overall function of the natural community. Plants aren’t really hard to learn, if you’re motivated to do it, but you first have to get away from the idea that nature is all about big charismatic animals. Wolves and eagles are important, and they used to symbolize nature for me too, but what really makes a prairie tick are things like robberflies and panic grasses.
Being a conservationist in the Midwest generally means working with fragmented landscapes. That means there’s an added pressure—we’re trying to save as much as we can of what’s left. In some instances, we know every one of the handful of sites where a particular species still exists, which can be a little depressing. Every time a prairie gets plowed up or aerially sprayed, you wonder if the last population of some species we haven’t even discovered yet died with it. On the other hand, the great thing about prairies is that even small ones can have incredible diversity, and it would take many lifetimes just to catalog all the species living there. That complexity helps keep me energized to learn about the species and about how to keep them all going.
Learn how to identify plants. And insects, if you can. Evaluating how well a prairie, or any other natural system, is responding to management is very difficult if you can’t even identify at least the major plant and insect species. Birds and other vertebrates are relatively easy to learn, but they are relatively poor indicators of whether or not management strategies are benefitting the overall function of the natural community. Plants aren’t really hard to learn, if you’re motivated to do it, but you first have to get away from the idea that nature is all about big charismatic animals. Wolves and eagles are important, and they used to symbolize nature for me too, but what really makes a prairie tick are things like robberflies and panic grasses.
Being a conservationist in the Midwest generally means working with fragmented landscapes. That means there’s an added pressure—we’re trying to save as much as we can of what’s left. In some instances, we know every one of the handful of sites where a particular species still exists, which can be a little depressing. Every time a prairie gets plowed up or aerially sprayed, you wonder if the last population of some species we haven’t even discovered yet died with it. On the other hand, the great thing about prairies is that even small ones can have incredible diversity, and it would take many lifetimes just to catalog all the species living there. That complexity helps keep me energized to learn about the species and about how to keep them all going.
What are your favorite natural areas in the Midwest? What areas do you return to constantly, and what's your favorite newly visited area?
I have two favorite prairies close to home. One is the Griffith Prairie, owned by Prairie Plains Resource Institute—a local prairie conservation/education organization in my home town of Aurora, Nebraska. Griffith Prairie is about 15 miles north of town and has incredible steep knobby hills of surprisingly diverse prairie overlooking the Platte River. The other is The Nature Conservancy’s Dahms/Derr Tracts, which are the center of much of the research and experimentation I do with prairie restoration and management. I feel like I know every inch of each of our management units, but every time I walk around them I find something new.
Farther from home, I feel lucky to live close enough to the Nebraska Sandhills that I can get to them within an hour or so. When a work or vacation trip takes me into or through the sandhills, I’m always surprised how quickly the drive goes—it’s impossible to get tired of the scenery in a 12-million-acre landscape full of contiguous hilly prairies. When I have time to stop and walk, I love to lose myself in the seemingly endless expanse of grass.
The place I wish I could visit more often is The Nature Conservancy’s Nachusa Grasslands in Illinois. Bill Kleiman, his staff, and his incredible cadre of volunteers are doing simply amazing restoration work, and it’s inspiring to be there with both the prairies and the people.
Summer fire. Fire is an integral part of prairie management, but many prairie managers burn only in the early spring. With sufficient rest to build up thatch and dead grass stems, prairies can burn during any season—including the middle of summer. Summer fires can be helpful in reducing the vigor of dominant warm-season grasses that can otherwise monopolize resources at the expense of wildflowers and other plants. On the other hand, in northern prairies, summer fire can sometimes favor cool-season exotic grasses like smooth brome, tall fescue, or Kentucky bluegrass unless fall or spring grazing or some other treatment is used to neutralize the advantage to those invaders.
Cattle watching a prairie fire. One of the management systems we are experimenting with on lands I manage is patch-burn grazing, in which a portion of the prairie is burned each year. Cattle have access to the whole prairie all season long, but they spend the majority of their time grazing the fresh regrowth in the most recently burned patch. One variation on the patch-burn grazing system we are experimenting with includes burning the new patch while cattle are in the prairie with us. The first couple times we did that, we were a little nervous about how the cattle would respond, but as it turns out, they generally stand back and watch from a safe distance as we create their next feeding area.
Monday, April 19, 2010
This Week in Iowa Nature
Early woodland flowers--Dutchman's breeches, columbine, hepatica, Jack-in-the-pulpit, spring beauty, and bluebells--await spring hikers.
Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar
Friday, April 16, 2010
Plant of the Week
Blueflag iris
Iris virginica L.
other common names: wild iris, fleur-de-lis, blueflag, southern blueflag
Iris: from Greek, meaning “rainbow,” probably because of the multitude of flower colors in this genus. Iris was the name of the rainbow goddess of Greek mythology.
Virginica: meaning “of Virginia.”
Iris family: Iridaceae
Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
An Interview with Chris Helzer: Part 2
What species of plants or animals are you especially interested in?
That depends on when you ask me. Right now I’m trying to learn all I can about spiders. But I’ve been learning a lot about pollinators in the last couple of years, and I still feel like I have plenty of room for more information on that group of critters too. I studied grassland birds in graduate school and still keep up with much of the research related to them, but most of my time now is spent thinking about and working with plants and insects—which makes sense since they make up the vast majority of grassland species.
How does photography change the way you experience prairies?
Photography is my vehicle for discovery in prairies. When I’m walking around prairies at work or even on my own, I notice things and try to pay attention to what I’m seeing as best I can. But I’m evaluating—trying to figure out what’s happening as a result of the management or restoration strategies we’re employing. In contrast, being behind a camera in a prairie is what I imagine it must be like to be inside a submersible in the ocean. With a camera, I feel more like an explorer than just a passer-by or a scientist, and I look at things much differently.
My favorite photographic subjects are small, and I choose subjects by the way they interact with light rather than walking around looking for something specific to photograph. Because of that, I come home with lots of photos of small creatures I’ve never seen before and then have to spend time figuring out what they are and what they do. When I figure them out, I write about them so I can use the photos and stories to share what I’ve learned with others.
What has changed in the outdoor world since your first days of trying to protect it? What's better, what's worse?
I think more people are aware of prairies now than they used to be. I’m very excited about the number of prairie enthusiast groups that have popped up in the last couple of decades. Their energy has begun to help dispel the idea that prairies are just the boring flat places you have to travel through to get to forests, mountains, or lakes.
In a somewhat related phenomenon, more people are also trying to move out into open areas to escape from town and own their own piece of wildness. Some of that is due to an increased interest in nature, but I think it’s also related to an increased number of people who can afford to buy land. I don’t think the changing landowner demography is necessarily good or bad, but it is definitely changing the way conservationists have to think. When we were dealing primarily with agricultural landowners, we were talking to people who knew about land management and trying to help them find ways to make a living while still providing habitat for wildlife and biological diversity. The new “recreational” landowners are more willing and/or able to put a little more priority on wildlife habitat, but they generally have much less experience with land management tools and techniques. And because most landscapes still have a mixture of both types of landowners, we also have to help work through the tensions as the two groups interact with each other as neighbors.
Caterpillar at Griffith Prairie. After a long day of painting my house one summer, I drove north out of town with my friend Gerry to take advantage of the evening light at Griffith Prairie. It was a beautiful night and we both wandered around happily with our cameras until the sun went down. On this particular night, the afterglow in the sky after sunset was so bright that when I found this little caterpillar the reflected light from the sunset was enough to make a great photograph. I love getting face to face with insects like this to show people a different perspective on what would otherwise be just another fuzzy caterpillar.
Cattle grazing in prairie. While it can be hard to watch if you’re not used to it, cattle grazing in prairies can be an important part of a management regime that favors wildlife habitat and overall biological diversity. Defoliating dominant grasses forces them to abandon much of their root mass, opening up space for other plants to move in on their territories, and prevents the grasses from becoming a monoculture. During the rest period after a grazing bout, the grasses recover their vigor, but not before newly established plants gain a foothold in the neighborhood too. Grazing can also provide for heterogeneous vegetation structure for wildlife that is difficult to achieve with homogeneous management treatments like fire and haying.
Chris Helzer, author, The Ecology and Management of Prairies in the Central United States
That depends on when you ask me. Right now I’m trying to learn all I can about spiders. But I’ve been learning a lot about pollinators in the last couple of years, and I still feel like I have plenty of room for more information on that group of critters too. I studied grassland birds in graduate school and still keep up with much of the research related to them, but most of my time now is spent thinking about and working with plants and insects—which makes sense since they make up the vast majority of grassland species.
How does photography change the way you experience prairies?
Photography is my vehicle for discovery in prairies. When I’m walking around prairies at work or even on my own, I notice things and try to pay attention to what I’m seeing as best I can. But I’m evaluating—trying to figure out what’s happening as a result of the management or restoration strategies we’re employing. In contrast, being behind a camera in a prairie is what I imagine it must be like to be inside a submersible in the ocean. With a camera, I feel more like an explorer than just a passer-by or a scientist, and I look at things much differently.
My favorite photographic subjects are small, and I choose subjects by the way they interact with light rather than walking around looking for something specific to photograph. Because of that, I come home with lots of photos of small creatures I’ve never seen before and then have to spend time figuring out what they are and what they do. When I figure them out, I write about them so I can use the photos and stories to share what I’ve learned with others.
What has changed in the outdoor world since your first days of trying to protect it? What's better, what's worse?
I think more people are aware of prairies now than they used to be. I’m very excited about the number of prairie enthusiast groups that have popped up in the last couple of decades. Their energy has begun to help dispel the idea that prairies are just the boring flat places you have to travel through to get to forests, mountains, or lakes.
In a somewhat related phenomenon, more people are also trying to move out into open areas to escape from town and own their own piece of wildness. Some of that is due to an increased interest in nature, but I think it’s also related to an increased number of people who can afford to buy land. I don’t think the changing landowner demography is necessarily good or bad, but it is definitely changing the way conservationists have to think. When we were dealing primarily with agricultural landowners, we were talking to people who knew about land management and trying to help them find ways to make a living while still providing habitat for wildlife and biological diversity. The new “recreational” landowners are more willing and/or able to put a little more priority on wildlife habitat, but they generally have much less experience with land management tools and techniques. And because most landscapes still have a mixture of both types of landowners, we also have to help work through the tensions as the two groups interact with each other as neighbors.
Caterpillar at Griffith Prairie. After a long day of painting my house one summer, I drove north out of town with my friend Gerry to take advantage of the evening light at Griffith Prairie. It was a beautiful night and we both wandered around happily with our cameras until the sun went down. On this particular night, the afterglow in the sky after sunset was so bright that when I found this little caterpillar the reflected light from the sunset was enough to make a great photograph. I love getting face to face with insects like this to show people a different perspective on what would otherwise be just another fuzzy caterpillar.
Cattle grazing in prairie. While it can be hard to watch if you’re not used to it, cattle grazing in prairies can be an important part of a management regime that favors wildlife habitat and overall biological diversity. Defoliating dominant grasses forces them to abandon much of their root mass, opening up space for other plants to move in on their territories, and prevents the grasses from becoming a monoculture. During the rest period after a grazing bout, the grasses recover their vigor, but not before newly established plants gain a foothold in the neighborhood too. Grazing can also provide for heterogeneous vegetation structure for wildlife that is difficult to achieve with homogeneous management treatments like fire and haying.
Chris Helzer, author, The Ecology and Management of Prairies in the Central United States
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