Day 9 Oct 7 2014 Exploring the Prairie ecosystem

   We did get out to enjoy the totally sunny day , driving some 45 miles to the Neal Smith National Wildlife Reserve southeast of DesMoines IA. This is a Reserve dedicated entirely to reinstating, if you will, the tall grass and short grass prairie that once covered the entire mid America from Alberta  to Louisiana and contained not only the million head of buffalo and the passenger pigeon, but millions and millions? of other animals and who knows how many subterranean creatures.  It was a veritable storehouse of life.

   Then …settlers started to plow the land and Mr. Deere came along woth his new invention, the steel plow (The soil got sticky in the plains and the steel plow was just the thing to over come this stickiness.) and the rest is history, I one generation the prairie as it was known, was gone. Today only .01 % of the total that originally existed is left . But, through the efforts of projects like we see at the Neal Smith NWR, there is hope that some of that can be restored in the years to come.

   The Visitor Center at Neil Smith is primarily an education center and has wonderful areas for teaching, demonstrating, and researching ways to best show what this prairie is all about. A school busload of High School Juniors was there today gathering specimens to learn about what lives there. I learned that prairie grasses are MORE VALUABLe to keeping carbon gases out of the atmosphere than trees. Now that was real revelation to me. As a former forester of sorts, I always thought that the trees were the best way to clean the air. But the grasses roots go so deep into the soil (6-8 feet inmost cases), that the return of the elenents to the soil is guaranteed. Even when they burn the grasses, for rejuvenation  like was done naturally centuries ago,  the carbon released to the air is 1/10th that of burning trees. Maybe we should all plant prairie grasses where we can?

         The roots of the prairie grasses go into the soil from 6-8 feet shown in the cut away view.

   This NWR,  has two herds of native animals. They were native to the plains as well. THIS IS  ANOTHER NEW BIT OF LEARNING FOR ME. (ELK)  We did see some of the Buffalo, but as it was the middle of the day, the Elk were in shade I am sure. (Temp was 70 F) but it was very windy at 25-30 mph.
   The rolling hills with the prairie grasses are what one might picture in days gone by, that was here for the Native American Indians to use and live with.

The Buffalo herd of 83 animals , though enclosed , has about 1,000 acres to roam and eat grasses.

The natives of the area used everything that nature could provide in their lives. 

The Oiway tribe lived here in the middle of the prairie. 

   All in all the day was a learning one, and when completely surrounded by the prairie and hearing (on an audio CD about the history and progress), it sinks it quickly.  I will end today with a few more pictures of the prairie site for visual effects. I will post others on my  Face Book site.

This a picture of one of the Oak Savannah Prairie that is being reestablished. It was a farmland forest, and all the non-prairie species were removed leaving it in "pre prairies" state. It is reboundig slowly but surely. One thing about the prairie species, in time, they will force out the non native plants  from the habitat.

 We saw 14 bird species today including White Pelican, Bluebirds, Horned Lark,  a Franklin's Gull and 4 Pheasant.

   Tomorrow we will visit Red Rock Lake (Again SE of Des Moines)  and I believe will see more shore and water birds than we have.   It s a 23 mile long reservoir of the Des Moines River that is used for recreation, wildlife and conservation.  See ya!