"The prairie is one of those plainly visible things that you can’t photograph. No camera lens can take in a big enough piece of it. The prairie landscape embraces the whole of the sky. Any undistorted image is too flat to represent the impression of immersion that is central to being on the prairie. The experience is a kind of baptism."
― Paul Gruchow
My vacation mornings this past week were spent looking for wood warblers at the Pheasant Branch creek corridor, but after lunch I've been heading out to my favorite tiger beetle haunts. The quote above is true ― my prairie photographs fail to render what it's like to stand in the middle of Spring Green's fantastic desert prairie. The scale is simply lost. The bluff looks so small in any photograph I've ever taken. As prairies in southern Wisconsin go, this one is truly my favorite. Though I've been visiting this prairie for almost twenty years, I still feel as though there's so much left to discover.
In addition to tiger beetles, I made the trek from Middleton to Spring Green to see if Lark Sparrows had returned to the prairie. It didn't take long to find a couple of them chortling away their buzzy songs. I found one perched at the end of a log preening for several minutes. Feather maintenance is of utmost importance for songbirds, and so too is a good lookout perch!
There were still no Big Sand Tiger Beetles along the sandy trail that leads up to the woods ― surprising. I figured they would be active and out of their burrows by now. There were plenty of Festive and Oblique-lined, so these two species satiated my tiger beetle photographic aspirations for the outing. But like any visit to Spring Green when the weather is warm, there were more insects to find.
Several American Copper butterflies were darting around from one nectar source to another, but they seemed to be favoring the Prairie Buttercup flowers over everything else in bloom. Near the entrance to the woods I found a single Harvester and several Juvenal's Duskwing, the latter being next to impossible to get close to with my macro lens ― they're just so skittish and erratic. They're rather difficult to track after an escape flight, but there were enough of them around that I was finally able to capture a photograph of one.
Blue-eyed Grass was present, scattered within the large patches of Birdsfoot Violets. Once in the woods there were Wild Geraniums and anemone. I went halfway up the bluff trail, but abruptly decided to turn around. I figured there were likely many Splendid Tiger beetles on the rocky outcroppings, but I'm content that I've successfully documented them this spring. I probably won't return to the top of the bluff until I try for Common Claybank Tiger Beetles later in the summer months.
I really wasn't ready to go home. The weather was so nice I sat on the bench at the kiosk near the prairie's entrance. There was I entertained by several Lark Sparrows foraging along the trail. Suddenly, one of the birds sounded an alarm call prompting all of the sparrows to crouch low ― Cooper's Hawk! I'm always impressed how quickly songbirds detect the presence of a hunting raptor. Fortunately for the sparrows, this time the accipiter failed to notice potential prey and merely flew on by. Once the threat was over, the host of sparrows returned to their comic but deft foraging behavior.
There was no one else present, but I was far from alone. The trees and hills, tiger beetles, butterflies, birds, and who knows what else ― all under a gorgeous glowing sky. We shared this common space for a short time. This being just a fragment of what occurs every minute of every hour, days in the months of spring, summer, and fall. I kind of wonder what the Lark Sparrows are doing at this very moment. Everything they need is right here.
All images © 2021 Mike McDowell