Back in the 1990s, we regularly got summer afternoon thunderstorms. Round about June, the weather was sufficiently warm that after an afternoon downpour, the prairie spadefoot toads – and maybe an additional variety or two – would emerge from their underground torpor to make the trip downhill to the seasonal stock pond for a rousing …
What is this? It looks like a tiny clam. But it’s in a temporary stock pond in shortgrass prairie. One little mollusk is lying quietly in the upper left portion of the video by 3-4 seconds in. Two or three others swim through. Where did these come from, and where did they go? This is …
Life in The Other Colorado. What’s out here? Flat but slightly rolling semi-arid shortgrass prairie land, populated with more beef cattle than people. I grew up back east, among rolling hills forested with a mix of evergreen and deciduous trees, thick with an understory of shrubbery that provided plenty of nesting for many varieties of …