How do I love the prairie? Let me count the ways
All the ticks at the Elk Glen preserve lined up on Diana's knee for one of her famous airplane rides.(Photo by Diana Bizecki Robson)
Once again I will be spending a few weeks out at the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s fescue prairie preserves south of Riding Mountain National Park, studying plant-pollinator interactions. The beginning of June marked my first trip of the year. Before I left the city I was feeling apprehensive: were the mosquitoes going to be bad? Would I get Lyme disease from a tick bite, eaten by a bear or stuck in the mud? However, all that nervousness melted away as I came to my first plot and remembered what it is I love about doing field work:
There were tonnes of cool dragonflies to look at this spring. (Photo by Diana Bizecki Robson)
Doing the tick flick
There's nothing more satisfying than capturing a tick, putting it on your knee and flicking it into the stratosphere with your fingers (take that, you lousy parasite!).
The view
In Winnipeg my office window faces a parking lot. Out on the prairie I get to look at leaves trembling in the breeze, colourful wildflowers and funky dragonflies.
Chokecherry flowers smell amazing! (Photo by Diana Bizecki Robson)
The prairie smell
That prairie smell of chokecherry flowers, crushed wild bergamot leaves and dried grass...
If only I could bottle it and sell it.
The lack of noise, noise, noise, noise!
When you live in the city you get used to the noise, although it still irritates you on some level. What I hate most about the city is the constant sound of lawn mowers. And they always start up just as you sit down on your deck to read a book. When I go to the preserve, the almost complete absence of human-caused noise makes me feel like I don't want to throttle someone anymore.
The woodchuck that lives under the field house inspecting my car. (Photo by Diana Bizecki Robson)
Getting to know the neighbours
I love the look on animals’ faces when they know they're being watched. I startled a thirteen-lined ground squirrel, a family of Canada geese, a chipmunk, a skunk, a woodchuck and a black bear on this trip. I'm just sorry I didn't have a telephoto lens on my camera to capture their priceless expressions of shock!
Home sweet home
The sound of trembling aspen leaves in the breeze is sublime. (Photo by Diana Bizecki Robson)
Somewhat regretfully I am back in noisy Winnipeg, staring at that parking lot again. And ironically this morning my neighbour fired up his mower just as I sat on my deck to have my coffee. But in just a few more weeks I'll be listening to those lovely mourning doves again and smelling the roses, quite literally as they should be in bloom by the time I get there. Till then, that thought will have to sustain me.
About the Author
Diana Bizecki Robson is the curator of botany at The Manitoba Museum.
