This past Sunday I got to participate in pulling out woody plants from a prairie area somewhat near the university. It was a lot of fun and I got to learn quite a bit about the general ecology about prairies and their eventual migration to becoming forested areas. This is not something that can normally be seen, but it was obvious in the area that we were in because on one side you could see where the trees/shrubs were truly beginning to grow and usurp control from the prairie by creating shade. That is where the Red Bison comes in.
There were about a dozen of us and we took it to the trees/shrubs that were beginning to grow. The area we were working on actually belongs to the railroad company, but they have been good enough to let us use it and work on it to preserve what natural prairie we can. Armed with loppers and mild herbicides, we ventured out into the overgrown zone with determination to root out (no pun intended) as many woody plants as we could.
There were many, great and small, but we attacked them with gusto and managed to make quite the dent in the woody plant population. Now their bodies lay next to the railroad tracks as a sign that the Red Bisoneers were here and have done their work well. We fought hard to pry through the brambles and other thorny things to get to the offending trees and take them down.
These brambles were everywhere and no one was able to escape unscathed. I myself came out scratched all over and almost got a lovely, free ear piercing when I stood up after taking down a tree using a technique my old high school teacher taught me. Still left a decent hole and scratch, but not too bad overall. It will heal soon enough.
As a show of how entrenched some of these woody plants were, some had dead stumps where they had been taken down in the previous year or two, but grew new stumps up right around the dead one. Myself and two other Bisoneers spent a good 10 minutes fighting with a hawthorn tree that had gotten much too comfortable growing there. But despite its thorny defenses, we prevailed and took down the multiple stumps it had sent up and victoriously tossed them to the side where they belonged.
Besides the victory of taking down plant after plant, there were many other interesting things to be found. One girl found a praying mantis as she waded into the brambles and a small group found a large grasshopper (at least 4th instar, possibly adult) on one of the offending trees. I had the joy of finding many different insects and arachnids, including four juvenile yellow garden spiders (argiopes). I apologize to any Bisoneers that read this because I mislabeled this spider as a silver argiope on the trip.
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| Juvenile Yellow Argiope (Argiope aurantia) |
Overall, a very fun trip and I am happy that I was able to bloody myself again doing something that enjoyable (and helpful!). Very much looking forward to doing it again, along with whatever plans the Red Bison club has!
Keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to help. You never know what you'll see.
Bug
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