Prairie Preview Returns Yet Again

Well, another year is rolling around to Prairie Preview time, another opportunity to network with conservation-minded people; and get help with your upcoming field trip or prairie burn; and find out how others are dealing with that sweet clover invasion; and can you actually eat those flat brown mushrooms that always pop up under your pine trees?

Taking the long view down our past 34 years, some of our speakers have been rather prescient. For example, at our very first meeting, held in the Iowa City Public Library in 1983, Bill Haywood came to tell us about the roadside prairie plantings he had started in Blackhawk County. And right there a group of us organized a field trip to go see. As you know, it has since become a good idea statewide. By 1990 Doug Fredrick, Johnson County Engineer, spoke about his plans for local roadside vegetation. In 1995, Russ Bennette, by then employed as our roadside biologist, shared his experiences. And in 2003, Chris Henze told us how the local roadside program had evolved. And in the meantime, our resident artist Mark Müller has been creating a whole set of exquisite posters for Iowa’s Living Roadway Trust Fund., which many of us have been able to obtain at past Prairie Previews.

This year our speaker is Mark Hirsch, a professional photographer who gets deep into his portrayal of nature. You might sorta know him already, he returned every day in all seasons to photograph a lonesome bur oak tree, and then packaged up a year’s worth of seasonal highlights in a coffee table type of book titled That Tree. He will be happy to autograph your copy if you already have one, or sell you one if you wish.

Bur Oak Land Trust has also arranged for Mark to offer a late afternoon class on nature photography with emphasis on getting the most from the camera in your smart phone. His message is that the mechanical part of quality nature photography has become easy, perhaps as near as your cell phone. The finesse now comes down to putting yourself in nature, chasing the right lighting, the right moment, anticipating how the action will unfold, deliberate blurring to show action, and a dozen other techniques to capture what you are really experiencing. The class runs for 45 minutes starting at 4:30 pm at the Clarion Highlander on Thursday, March 1, and will cost $25.

And of course come to Prairie Preview that evening at no cost, also at the Highlander. Doors open at 6:30 pm and there is never enough time to visit and learn from the 40 or 50 exhibitors and several hundred guests who will be there, before Mark starts speaking at 7:30 pm. So if you can, plan to also stay afterward and enjoy cookies and other treats provided by the Four Seasons Garden Club (available the entire evening), while you finally get the opportunity to corner that guy about the mushrooms.

If you haven’t been part of this ongoing chain of nature-based events for the past 35 years, a brief History of Prairie Preview is available online. Go to History of Prairie Preview.

Hope to see you there.