Meeting the new neighbors

It has been a busy year. Career changes, moving, adapting. It all results in less available time to meander through the native gardens and interact with the tiny inhabitants. Less time to take photos. Less time to support local habitat garden projects. That said, we have been the recipients of incredible fortune. Our home was purchased by a family who was especially appreciative of our native plant habitat gardens. This gives me hope that those plants will stick around to support many more generations of ecosystem-contributing life. In addition, our new home contains wonderful pockets of prairie for a suburban setting in Lincoln, Nebraska.

As we unpacked boxes and made the new space our own, we also have enjoyed meeting our new neighbors. Sure, the people we have encountered on our evening walks have been wonderful. But I am most interested in all of the living things that call our new property home.

Any lawn in our yard is purposeful, not a default. Functionally, it is a path to meander through the patches of prairie (with a small section reserved for sports). Aesthetically, it is a visual cue of intentionality. Negative space. The lawn lets the untrained eye know that the patches of prairie are there on purpose. The thick vegetation isn't something we just haven't got around to removing yet.

Rabbits find plenty of forage in the native habitat gardens and the "weedy" lawn.

Even so, our lawn is as ecologically functional as possible. It riddled with clover, trefoil, bindweed, and seelings that have escaped the garden and survived mowing. I was delighted to see it filled with skippers, leafhoppers, and foraging rabbits. Even the non-native, weedy flowers were frequented by generalist bees.

The plan for the property is to follow the eastern Nebraska model: a mixed grass prairie/savanna (scattered trees with plenty of openings for prairie plants), with dense shrubland in the drainage areas along the boarders of the property. Right now there is a heavy burden of invasive shrubs. Thankfullyl, as we clear them out we continue to find hidden gems burried underneath: black cherry, walnut, aromatic sumac, and native dogwoods. We are continuing to knock back the honeysuckle, mulberry, and Russian olive, and replace them with despirable shrubs.

Here is a collection of photos from our first season in this new home, showcasing a few of the "neighbors" we have met.

This native bee (likely Augochlora sp.) appreciates our weedy lawn. Here, it is collecting bindweed pollen.

Penstemon grandiflorus? P. cobaeae? I'm not for certain, but I appreciate it as much as the bumble bees.

A closer inspection of the Penstemon reveals a lovely katydid.

We are fortunate to have large batches of butterfly milkweed (Asclepius tuberosa).

Milkweed supports more than monarchs. These milkweed beetles are such whimsical creatures.

We have met some cricket frogs, leopard frogs, and bullfrogs in our small pond. There are even some painted turtles that have taken up residence.

I'm happy our property produces enough insects for this wren to easily feed its clutch.

We are a little out of the city, so we have the latitude to leave up some dead trees. They are great insect habitat (and great cardinal perches).

Flickers are one of the many bird species we observed enjoying the volunteer native black cherry in the ditches.

We were pleasantly surprised to see bluebirds passing through our property. Maybe we can convince some to nest next year.

These checkerspot caterpillars were quite abundant on the volunteer annual sunflowers early in the season. They gave rise to a healthy population of checkerspot butterflies without inhibiting sunflower blooms.

The cup plant stuck about 8 feet in the air during peak summer. It is hard not to love.

We share our property we numerous skippers across several species.

A small Halictus sp. bee foraging on sneezeweed.

Now that we are nearing the end of summer, the sunflowers are really stealing the show. Melissodes bees (the very fuzzy bees with long antennae), specialize on gathering pollen from sunflowers and related species. They can be really numerous, as long as there are plenty of Helianthus or Silphium (or related species). They are clumsy and fluffy. Everything you love about bumble bees with the added sprinkle of unfamiliarity.

Stay tuned for more progress as we continue to improve this habitat space and document the life we are living amongst.