Spending Time On The Prairie

Chalk Faced Corporal Dragonfly

I spent the last week on the prairie learning about the prairie.  I stayed at Sibley State Park near Spicer, MN.  I studied the prairie and pothole course with the Master Naturalist program.  This, I think, was a really good use of my vacation time.  I learned a lot of information, made a bunch of new friends, spent hours in the wild learning from nature experts, and had a really good time.  The first thing I noticed when I entered the park were the dragonflies.  Hundreds and hundreds of dragonflies were buzzing around the fields, the roads, the trails, and the parking lots.  Dragonflies must have had a recent hatching because I can't remember the last time I saw that many dragonflies.  As a part of the course we have to do a capstone volunteer project.  We have 4 days to get this project done.  I decided to join in on the dragonfly capstone.  With four other people we developed and produced a one page (both sides) handout for families visiting Sibley State Park.  The handout is designed to provoke interest in dragonflies and damselflies.  We hope the handout will get people to notice the flying insects and learn that they don't all look alike.  Together we had fun netting dragonflies and identifying them.  I got pretty good at netting the creatures.  Soon I became experienced at holding them by their wings inside the net as I turned the net inside out and carefully took them out.  Today was graduation day from the prairies and pothole course.  I drove out of the prairies and back to the big woods, big river biome. I won't miss the power point slides but I will miss everything else about this week.