Exploring a Prairie Stream

It’s hot. Pull on your hip boots and wade into Clear Creek with me. Let’s see what morning brings to a prairie stream.

It’s 9 a.m., but the dewdrops still spangle the grasses.

In the shallows, a flower opens, half submerged.

 

A spider hangs her web out to dry.

The dragonflies and damselflies are half hidden along the shoreline,  shivering off the cool of the early hours.

 

Springwater dancer damselflies, colored an impossible blue hue, soak up the morning light.

Nearby, a eastern tiger swallowtail turns to stained glass as she sips nectar in the sunshine.

 

In the marshy areas, a blue dasher–slightly befuddled–balances on a twig, trying to wake up. Must not have had his coffee yet.

An eastern pondhawk camouflages herself in the grasses as she considers her plans for the day.

 

A Halloween pennant uses his wings as solar panels, ready to let the light lift him aloft.

 

Everywhere you turn, there is something ordinary that seems extraordinary when covered in dew.

 

And you realize what you would have missed…

…had you not gone wading in a prairie stream.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): dewdrops on grasses, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; flower opening in the stream, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL;  spider web across Clear Creek, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; ebony jewelwing damselfly (Calopteryx maculata), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; springwater dancer damselfly (Argia plana), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; blue dasher dragonfly (male) (Pachydiplax longipennis), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; eastern pondhawk dragonfly (female) (Erythemis simplicicollis), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Halloween pennant dragonfly (Celithemis eponina), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; dewdrops on grasses, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Clear Creek, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL.