Prairie Appreciation Week and Night Skies



View of the prairie looking east, including Heritage center

 Last week was Prairie Appreciation Week at Homestead National Monument. As part of this event I was asked to go and take pictures of the prairie. Homestead National Monument has shared these pictures on facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/HomesteadNM/photos?ref=ts#!/media/set/?set=a.10151273007560242.518673.129335150241&type=3

View of the prairie looking west

Fall colors

    The National Park Service has a program through the Natural Sounds and Night Skies division that helps parks and monuments monitor the effects of light pollution in their area. Homestead National Monument had monitoring done back in 2008 and I was asked to write about the Night Skies program at the Monument for the website, the write up can be viewed at: http://www.nps.gov/home/naturescience/night-skies-at-homestead-national-monument.htm

NASA Astronaut Clayton Anderson visits Homestead National Monument



Me with Clayton Anderson

Founders Day, or August 25, 2012 was the 96th anniversary of the establishment of the National Park Service. Homestead National Monument invited Nebraska native and NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson to do a program at the monument on Founders Day, discussing the new frontier- Space. Clayton Anderson's program was very interesting and enlightening. He was a very down to earth guy with great story telling skills. He wandered around the crowd talking to people and posing for pictures before the program even began. He then started his program with some pictures and he got the audience involved by asking them to think what the captions might be. After taking a few suggestions from the crowd, he would reveal his captions. His captions always got a laugh out of the crowd. In many of the pictures of him in space, there was always something Nebraska related, most often a Nebraska Huskers hat, or the big red 'N' which he always had with him an all of his space walks. He talked a little about what life the the space station was like and then he went on to draw comparisons between the old frontier and the new frontier, similarities like problems with being able to travel long periods of times with only limited supplies. The whole program was very interesting and the crowd  seem to really enjoy it. At the end of the program he took some questions from the audience. Afterwards he stayed around to sign more autographs and pose for more pictures.

Panorama view of Clayton and the audience

Clayton Anderson with artist Michael Carroll's from Long-ships
to Space-ships painting, on loan form the Planetary Society

Clayton Anderson is a truly genuine guy that enjoys sharing his stories of space. He is also very proud of the fact that he is the only astronaut from Nebraska, and that he will always be the first astronaut from Nebraska. It was great to have him speak at the monument, he drew a crowd that ranged from infants to the elderly, and all seemed to enjoy the program equally. The evening ended with a watermelon feed sponsored by the Friends of Homestead and a video from the Lincoln Prairie Astronomy club. Unfortunately the star gazing had to be cancelled due to inclement weather, but it has been rescheduled for October 20th, during the Howling Homestead program.

This program is just another great example of the excellent programs that Homestead National Monument offers the surrounding communities. If you are in the area you should check out the website at www.nps.gov/home to see a list of upcoming activities and programs, including the Living Homesteader Reunion and Living History Extravaganza on Labor day weekend, Bill Nye the 'Planetary' guy on Sept 23, the Hedge Apple Festival on Oct 7 and Howling Homestead on Oct 20, along with many others.

Animals of the Tall Grass Prairie

Eastern Cottontail

As I am sure you can imagine, there are many animals that live in the tall grass prairie and the surrounding woodlands. I have gotten pictures of some, while others are a bit more illusive, though I still hope to snap a pic at some point in the season! One of the first pictures I got was of an eastern cottontail, though the first animals I saw were white-tail deer, thirteen line ground squirrels, and many types of birds, of which I have not been able to get pictures yet. I had the chance to help my supervisor in the Heartland Monitoring Network Bird Survey program. The survey basically had my supervisor and I out on the prairie and in the woodlands of the monument within the first 4 hours of sunlight during early June. We visited approximately 45 GPS location, that were established for specifically for this program. At each location we would record each species of bird that we saw or heard during a five minute period. We observed or heard many species of birds including, but not limited to: Indigo Bunting, Great Blue Heron, American Robin, American Crow, American Goldfinch, Eastern Phoebe, Northern Bobwhite, Spotted Towhee, Blue Jay, White Breasted Nuthatch, Red-Bellied Woodpecker, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Ring-necked Pheasant, Northern Cardinal, Barn Swallow, Red-winged Blackbird, Grey Catbird, Mourning Dove, House Wren, Norther Flicker (Yellow Shafted), Rose breasted Grosbeak, Baltimore Oriole, Turkey Vulture, Eastern Kingbird, Brown-headed Cowbird, Eastern Bluebird, Warbling Vireo and Killdeer. Outside of the survey I have seen/heard wild turkey, Downy woodpeckers, Hairy woodpeckers, Red-headed woodpeckers and Barred Owls. However here are some of the pictures that I have been able to get:

 Eastern Comma Butterfly (Lepidoptera)

Crazy Fox Squirrel licking the pavement

Fresh Water Mussel in Cub Creek

Female Red-winged Black bird

American Goldfinch- male

Solider Beetle (Coleoptera) on a Milkweed plant

Dickcissel

Baltimore Oriole feeding the family

Phoebe feeding the family

American Carrion Beetle (Coleoptera)

Baby spiders

Juvenile Robins

There are many other interesting animals on the prairie, my roommate and fellow SCA intern Chelsea saw a mink and a beaver, which I have yet to see. I have had the opportunity to see many fledglings, mostly robin, barn swallow and phoebe. I also got to see a coyote cross the road while I was driving to Kansas. I have also been able to see what lives in Cub Creek, we have found some small fish, probably in the minnow family, crayfish and many interesting macroinverterbrates.  I hope to see many more animals and I hope to get more pictures too, so that I can share them with you!