View allAll Photos Tagged Prairie
Sussex Prairie Garden is awash with colour at the moment with so many flowers in full bloom. It was pretty hot (there's worse on the way again next week), so I was happy to find myself a shady spot, surrounded by flowers, and plant myself there for a while. :)
This is the Smiley-Woodfin Native Prairie Grassland. This 2100 acre meadow, is the largest section of native grassland existing in Texas. It was originally part of a prairie system that stretched throughout the Midwestern United States and into Canada. Since the earliest settlers arrived in this area in the 1830s, when Texas was part of Mexico, this grassland has remained uncultivated, providing an annual harvest of native grasses. A lack of fuel and surface water made this area unsuitable for pioneer farmers. Although similar land nearby was tilled and planted, often resulting in erosion or overworked soil, this site was saved by the owner M.L. Smiley (1872-1953). A native of Lamar County, he used the meadow for cattle grazing and for hay production. Early harvests consisted of cutting and stacking the grasses for drying, or transporting the hay to nearby steam-powered presses. The process was later simplified by the use of gasoline-powered machines that harvested and baled the hay on the site. After Smiley's death, the meadow was inherited by brothers George S. and Gene M. Woodfin. Today the Smiley-Woodfin Prairie Grassland is the largest supplier of native hay in the state. (1981)
Sometimes I see these awesome billowy clouds in the sky just begging to be photographed, but the foreground is lacking something like an old abandoned farm house or barn. So working with what I had, I tried to create some interest with the road and the curved rows on the right.
"As to scenery, while I know the standard claim is that Yosemite, Niagara Falls, Yellowstone provide the greatest natural displays... I am not so sure. The prairies and plains, while less stunning at first glance, last longer, fill the aesthetic sense more deeply... they precede all the rest, and make North America's characteristic landscape."
Walt Whitman
I would tend to agree with Walt on that one.
Near the Hand Hills Ecological Reserve, south central Alberta.
I'm still way behind in my processing of images from last year. Here's one that I "found" a couple days ago that I really like. It's from early September, almost at the end of storm season.
Please view in full screen.
prairie cicada
Loda Cemetery Prairie Nature Preserve, IL USA
I spent the last few days on a road trip downstate visiting the remaining prairie remnants in Illinois. 99.9% of the original prairie of Illinois (the Prairie State) has been lost, most of it converted to farmland. To be fair, converted prairie is probably the best farmland in the world. But it's tragic that so little of the original prairie remains.
The prairie cicada is unusual in that the adult doesn't live in trees. A true prairie has almost no trees. Instead, he hangs out on tall, thick plant stems and is pretty easy to find in a healthy prairie.
The forecasters had been predicting big tornados for the day I shot this beginning three days previously. Indeed a strong storm front formed in the afternoon and approached Wichita at sixty miles an hour. I figured no photowalk so went to the Y to get some exercise. Soon after I arrived at the gym, the tornado warning sirens went off and I got to spend an hour in the locker room, which is the storm shelter at the Y. Afterwards I got in my workout while it rained a bit, and by the time I finished the storm had passed to the east. Quite amazingly, behind the storm it was perfectly calm, so I ended up getting in my photowalk anyway. For whatever reason, we got this unusual ground fog after the storm.... There were a few small tornados that day, but not much damage near Wichita....
A New Year and a new photo project has begun. The working title is The American Heartland. I will spend this year and probably a few more, traveling from the Texas panhandle, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska and a few more states. I began the project this past Saturday in the small Kansas town of Pretty Prairie. I captured this monochrome image of downtown with my Pentax K3iii Monochrome.
- www.kevin-palmer.com - A shelf cloud from a severe squall line surges across the empty South Dakota prairie.
There is a point on the Alberta Prairie where it plunges a few hundred meters into the Red Deer River Valley at a place called Dry Island Buffalo Jump.
I caught sunrise there back in October and the glow on the autumn grasses was brilliant.
This was very early in a day that would see me drive about 1000 km into Saskatchewan and back on one of my best photo day trips.
Connecting Road, Pitt Meadows, BC.
I first spotted this (continuing) bird from about 1 kilometer away, and ID'd him with my scope. We drove up to the tree is was perched in and got some shots!
This sunset was photographed in the western part of the prairie at Grass Lake Preserve. Several radio-TV transmission towers are located on the west border of the preserve. If you look closely the tower guy wires are faintly visible on the left side. The image is beautiful even with the wires, so I decided to leave them rather than crop or brush them out. Enjoy!
Photographed Monday, July 31, 2017 at Grass Lake Preserve, part of Vadnais-Snail Lakes Regional Park, Shoreview, Minnesota U.S.A. and administered by Ramsey County Parks.
Equipment used: Sony A77II [ILCA77II] with Minolta Maxxum AF 28-85mm lens on tripod.
parks.co.ramsey.mn.us/parks/Pages/snaillake.aspx
www.ramseycounty.us/sites/default/files/Parks%20and%20Rec...
DSC00305
A last, minimalist image.
I love that it's taken me almost 2 months to process and post the image from my Alberta Rockies trip.
All I knew when I saw this grasshopper was that I'd never seen one like it before. Turned out I had, the tiny green one grandson Everett caught in June was a younger version of this one. This is a middle stage of the prairie boopie grasshopper. My 2nd of this species. I want to find an adult next, they are black.
Female Prairie Boopie nymph (Boopedon gracile)
Crowley, Tx
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com